In Lieu of an Introduction

The ruling classes of India are quite upbeat about the growth rate of Indian economy. It is claimed with much breast-beating that the Indian economy is running with full throttle bypassing the growth rate of all emerging economies barring only China. Some lackeys of the rulers project the coming century as Asian century led by emerging tigers such as India, China, etc. They are upholding the unbridled growth rate of Indian stock markets with much fanfare (even after the crashes in May-June 2006). They rejoice at the spectacular growth rate of IT/BPO sector. They are projecting the swelling purchasing power of the new middle class as panacea for once an ailing Indian economy. They are thrilled at the news of more and more Indian billionaires arising at this era of globalisation. They are excited by the venture of Indian big capitalist classes overseas. They are felt dignified as their imperialist masters have given them a pat on the shoulders for going along the right course of economic reforms. With the equal momentum they are satisfied at the state of affairs happening even in the agricultural sector though showing some disturbing signs. In fact, the Indian ruling classes cannot hide certain symptoms of deep-rooted diseases of Indian agriculture under the miracle of growth rate. In the last few years, lot of the reports regarding the distress of agriculture have been flashed in the media. Some of these reports are as follows: thousands of farmers are committing suicides; farmers do not get the right prices of their produce; input prices are skyrocketing making farming unprofitable; harmful aspects of Green Revolution are developing; imports of agri-products are flooding domestic markets under the regime of WTO damaging the livelihoods of farmers; foreign-made genetic seeds are making inroads rendering farming more vulnerable; both domestic and foreign companies are penetrating in farming & agri-business and are promoting contract farming which may ruin farmers; etc. etc. These are really some important questions and alarming signs of Indian agriculture which should be asked, probed, and answered. But, we believe strongly that there are more questions about Indian agriculture which miss proper attention. In other words,

2 update 12 Update want to stress on the fact that the real, basic problems or crisis of Indian agriculture have been almost forgotten. In fact, overwhelming majority of the Indian peasants are either landless or poor whose conditions are deplorable and miserable. There are millions of agricultural workers living in penury. In percentage these peasants and agricultural workers constitute roughly 90% of the population engaged in agriculture. In absolute terms they are nearly 600 million or 60 crores. Some of the basic and burning questions in their livelihoods are: landlessness, subsistence cultivation, subsistence wages, non-availability of work for whole year, unemployment, intolerable poverty, grave indebtedness, starvation or semi-starvation, malnutrition, nonaccess to minimum health facilities, elementary education, drinking water; the social deprivations & miseries of the lower caste people and/or tribals as they are major constituent part of the poor population engaged in agriculture; and above all, the exploitations, oppressions arising out of the vast presence of semifeudal remnants, etc. These questions deserve serious attention of the readers interested in Indian agriculture. Out of these questions the most important one is landlessness of the Indian peasants. There was a time when spontaneous and sporadic revolts of the landless peasants developed all over India. Can one forget the revolutionary upheavals of the landless peasants of Telengana and Naxalbari! In these stormy days the revolutionary demand of LAND TO THE TILLERS had been voiced; movements had been organised; lands had been confiscated and distributed among the landless peasants, firstly during the late forties & early fifties and then at the end-sixties of the last century. These incidence of unrest forced the Indian ruling classes to make several programmes of Land Reforms under the advice (or diktat) of their imperialist masters. In fact, after the World War II, the imperialists, particularly the US imperialists either forced or dictated ruling classes of many independent & dependent third world countries to take measures of Land Reforms to save these countries from revolutionary upheaval and/or communist menace. The ruling classes of India subserviently obeyed their masters and formulated Land Reforms programmes. A little known figure, Wolf Ladejinsky, an architect of the Land Reform Programmes in Japan and Taiwan (accomplished after the World War II to combat

update 12 3 the influence of communist march along the course of agrarian revolutions in some third world countries) on behalf of the US imperialists did splendid jobs of land reforms in several countries of Asia, Middle East, etc. including India. In fact, under the guidance of this land reforms guru (along with active participation of the imperialist agencies), the land reforms programmes in India was initiated and got momentum at the early seventies of the last century to steal thunder from the land grab movements. Thus at this juncture, two paths of Land Reforms appeared to confront each other one is revolutionary (in an incipient state) and another is reformist. The first one is visible at the land grab movements of the peasants. The second one was its answer to douse the flames in the countryside. At the incidence of gradual decrease of revolutionary fervour among the rural landless peasants and at the incapability of the masses to come decisively out of the grips of treacherous politics of left leaders in the 1970s, the basic & revolutionary demand of the LAND TO THE TILLERS had been almost disappeared from the political scene. The vacant space created was filled up by the reformist programmes of the ruling classes. Since then, though half-baked and cosmetic, the measures and programmes of Land Reforms created a pervasive dampness of reformism within the left politics & the masses. In these grim atmosphere of reformist politics, lakshmanrekha of Land Ceilings Act were so much sacredly upheld that even the landless and poor peasants were made forgotten about the basic revolutionary demand of LAND TO THE TILLERS. Even it was forgotten that an overwhelming portion of land was being occupied by some non-cultivating parasites who were exploiting millions of landless and poor peasants. Nevertheless, the programmes of Land Reforms produced almost nothing. There are still crores of landless peasants in rural India. According to Times of India (10.12.2004):
Two decades ago, of every hundred families in rural India, 31 families were landless. Today, the figure has gone up to 41 families out of every hundred. This is a huge number, more than the entire population of many countries.

Therefore, in the last two or three decades, in real terms, incidence of landlessness increased. Even in the land-reformfamed West Bengal, the landlessness among the rural agricultural

households reached a new high (39.6% in 1987-88 and 49.8% in 1999-2000) reports West Bengal Human Development Report (2004). Most of these landless households are compelled to toil as agricultural workers or sharecroppers. Most of the days they work as labourer, get cashes (& kinds) valued lower than the minimum wages fixed by different state governments. Moreover, overwhelming majority of them are severely underemployed and get less than 100 days of work a year. Times of India (10.12.04) further reports: In a field-based study in two districts in Haryana conducted by the Indian Institute for Women Studies and Development for the ministry of labour found fewer than 50 days of agricultural work a year 35-43 days for women and 32-44 days for men.... If this is the picture in Haryana, considered to be among the better-off states, the situation elsewhere can hardly be better. The livelihoods of the landed small peasants are not much better. Most of them are known to be subsistence peasants. In fact, a sizable section of these peasants are compelled to work in anothers field as agricultural workers to make a square meal. Malnourishment (even semi-starvation in some parts of the country), ill-health, disease, illiteracy, etc. are part and parcel of their life. Most of them are denied the basic amenities like sources of drinking water within a kilometer, electricity at houses, latrine facilities etc. If one examine their state of livelihoods by social classification, i.e., by caste/tribal basis (e.g., SC, ST), the picture will be gravely dismal. According to the draft paper of the Ninth Five-Year Plan, 77% of dalits and 90% of the adivasis are either absolute landless (own no land) or mere landless. In sum, the overwhelming majority of the peasants (90% of all agricultural households), being the pivot of Indian agriculture, are neglected, rejected and unrepresented in the volumes of the literature published discussing the plight of the Indian farmers. Under the above perspective, in this issue of Update, we are trying to examine certain aspects of the livelihoods of the Indian peasants, landless & poor in particular. To be more particular, we are trying to draw attention to the land questions & some associated problems in Indian agriculture. This is contents of the first chapter of this issue. In the second chapter the Land Reforms Programmes of the imperialists will be discussed.

Chapter I Certain Aspects of Indian Agriculture

It is mentioned earlier that the ruling classes of India were forced by the rising tide of agricultural unrest to adopt some measures of Land Reforms. First it was taken in 1949 when the Zamindari system was abolished; then in the early seventies of the last century at the behest of their imperialist masters. The measures taken in the seventies were very much cosmetic. A Land Ceiling Act was promulgated with thousands of loopholes. And from the very beginning the efforts of the ruling classes in implementing these measures were very much halfhearted, and skewed. In fact, the Land Reforms of the ruling classes were a hoax which produced little. Majority of the old structures and relations of land ownership remained intact (barring few changes in some pockets of forward states). Overwhelming vestiges of semi-feudal relations, exploitations, customs, etc. were preserved. Even in land-reform-famed West Bengal, where landtenancy was reformed (under the Operation Barga), the demand for ownership of the land (land to the tillers) was bypassed maintaining the old structures little disturbed. It may be inferred that the programmes of Land Reforms were aborted and almost discarded by the ruling classes. Interestingly, though little progressed so far with respect to Land Reforms, volumes of analysis/articles/discussions were made & published not only from India, but also from the universities, foundations, and the imperialist funding agencies delivering flood of suggestions, data, and research materials in this regard. But it is more surprising that from these volumes of researches very little information can be obtained since all of these data are derived from the Reports & Surveys of the Government of India [henceforth, GoI] which is based mainly on academic guidelines. In fact, these Reports/Surveys are in the most cases devoid of realities & facts happening in the agricultural sector of rural India. Moreover, these databases are almost outdated since most of the surveys on land holding patterns have been done in the early nineties of the last century. As for example, the Reports of Landholding Survey of the National Sample Survey Organisation [henceforth, NSSO or NSS] of GoI was published in 1991-92. Another source in this

respect is the Agricultural Census which was published last in 1995-96, i.e., more than ten years ago. Moreover, most of these surveys are unreliable because when asked by the surveyors/ officials of the governmental agencies large sections of the landlords and/or peasants hide facts due to many social factors. Even Wolf Ladejinsky, one of the founders of the blueprint for Land Reform programmes in the dependent countries acted on behalf of the US imperialists [to be discussed later in detail] expressed disgust at the questionability of these Surveys. But, in no way, we have to depend on these older, distorted, nonreliable databases to depict a realistic picture of landholding patterns. Even some newer (1999-2000) data for rural and agricultural labour households used in this issue are not enough to make up the loopholes in the older and skewed databases. Moreover, there are problems and fallacies in the databases presented by GoI. As for an example, the policy-makers of India do not recognise the landless peasants as cultivators. It is a well known fact that the landless rural households are mostly engaged in agricultural practices since there are little other occupations available in rural India. These overwhelming majority of rural households and/or families are either sharecroppers or are compelled to toil as agricultural labourers. They are tillers of the land and for time immemorial their life is deeply involved with the agriculture. But, according to GoI, they are not peasants because they are landless! What a marvellous (mis)conception is it! In real life, these sections of the peasants constitute the main part of the rural semi-proletariat and are the most revolutionary section in the countryside. Potentially, this section is the most vocal for the demand of land to the tillers. It may be for this reason that they are excluded from the category of peasant households! Another problem which deserves attention is the question of tenancies and sharecropping. In this case also, the official data are hardly full-proof since most of the peasants are reluctant to give out details about the conditionalities of tenancies (due to various factors including social). Most of the deals struck are mere verbal and subject to change at the whims/interests of the landowners; and most of the agricultural labour households are compelled to accept these indefinite conditionalities. For this reason we are compelled to exclude this important question from our discussions.

Landholding Patterns among Rural Households

[According to the Agricultural Department of Government of India the total geographical area of the country is 328.7 million hectares, of which 141 million hectares is the net sown area, while 190 million hectares is the gross cropped area. (Net sown area = Gross or total cropped area Area sown more than once). Hence, the cropping intensity is nearly 134%. (Cropping intensity = percentage of the gross cropped area to the net area sown). On behalf of National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), several rounds of had been done on the structure of landholdings betwen 1960-61 to 1991-92. In 1995-96, Agricultural Census conducted another survey on landholdings. We have to depend on these sources though they have numeraous limitations in their enumerations (discussed earlier). Table 1, taken from NSSO demonstrates Certain key characteristics of operational land holdings. Table 2-5 also provide some of the important data on land holdings. For definitions for the terms little known see Box 1. Note the Findings I & II for our observations/comments on these Tables.]

Table 1: Certain Key Characteristics of Operational Land Holdings

Item No. of operational holdings (lakh) Percentage increase of operational holdings Area operated (lakh hectare) Average area operated by op. hol. (in hectare) Number of parcels per holding 1960-61 507.7 1,334.8 2.63 5.7 1970-71 570.7 12.4 1,256.8 2.20 n.a. 1981-82 710.4 24.5 1,185.7 1.67 4.0 1991-92 934.5 31.5 1,251.0 1.34 2.7 1995-96 1,155.8 23.7 1,633.5 1.41 n.a.

[Sources: 17th, 26th, & 37th rounds of National Sample Survey (NSS) Reports Nos. 144, 215, 331, & 407. Data of the last column are derived from Agricultural Census, 1995-96, Govt. of India (GoI)]

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Box 1: Terms Explained

Hectare: 1 hectare (ha) = 2.5 acre (approximately); 1 acre = 3 bigha; 1 bigha = 1 shatak, 1 shatak = 1% of an acre (roughly on West Bengal standard). Household: A household is a group of persons normally living together and taking food from a common kitchen defined by the National Sample Survey (NSSO). In plain terms, and in accordance to the Indian rural standard, it may be called family comprising of several members. Operational Holdings: NSSO states: An operational holding is defined as a techno-economic unit used wholly or partly for agricultural production and operated (directed/managed) by one person alone or with the assistance of others, without regard to title, size or location.... In the context of agricultural operations, a technical unit is a unit with more or less independent resources covering items like land, agricultural equipments and machinery, drought animals etc. Holdings used exclusively for livestock and poultry raising and for production of livestock and poultry products (primary) and/or pisciculture are considered as operational holdings whereas holdings put exclusively to uses other than agricultural production are not considered as operational holdings. Notes from Update on above definition: A household operating/ cultivating an operational holding may be called an operating household. But, according to NSSO and/or Govt. of India, there is no difference between a person attached to cultivation directly and one not attached to cultivation in any way. Any household directs and/or manages the agricultural production is said to be operating household. The absentee landlords and/or landowners (i.e., non-cultivating landlords/landowners) are grouped along with the cultivating holders and/or peasants within the category: operating household. The basic concept of cultivators and/or peasants is thus confused by the authorities. Parcel: According to NSSO a parcel of an operational holding is a piece of land entirely surrounded by other operational holdings or by land not forming part of any operational holding. It might consist of one or more plots. Agricultural Production: NSSO states that the extended definition of agricultural production, ....includes growing of field crops, fruits, grapes, nuts, seeds, tree nurseries (except those of forest trees), bulbs, vegetables and flowers, both in the pen and in glass houses; production of coffee, tea, cocoa, rubber, forest production in parcels of land which form part of the enumeration holding and production of livestock, and livestock products, poultry and poultry products, fish, honey, rabbits, fur-bearing animals, and silkworm cocoons.

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A. Findings I by Update:
1. In 1999-2000 there was 158 million or 15.80 crore households in India. Out of this households 103.5 million or 10.35 crore or about 66% of the households were engaged in agricultural practices. (Source: NSS Report No. 408) According to the Agricultural Census 1995-96, there was 115.6 million or 11.56 crore households engaged in agricultural activities (See Table 1). 2. Table 1 provides the data for the operational land holdings for the period of 1960-61 to 1995-96. It is observed in this Table that during the period 1960-1992, total number of operational holdings (an unit/holding which operate land for agricultural production; see also Box 1: Terms Explained) have been increased by a whopping 80% (by 426.8 lakh in absolute numbers). The Table 1 shows also that during the 1st decade (60-61) number of operational holdings was increased by 12.4%; during the 2nd decade (70-71) by 24.5%; during the 3rd decade (81-82) by 31.5%; and, during the next 5 years by 23.7%. 3. Though number of operational land holdings was increased during this period, the area of land operated under these holdings was decreased by 6.28% (by 83.8 lakh hectare in absolute numbers). [Surprisingly, the Agricultural Census 1995-96 projects an illuminating picture in this regard. If their data is beTable 2: Size Distribution of Operational Holdings (in hectare) ing followed, the area operated increased between the Size Class/Categories Area Operated period 1991-92 & 1995-96 Landless* < 0.002 by an unbelievable margin Semi-Landless* 0.002-0.2 Marginal < 1.01 of 382.5 lakh or by about Small 1.01-2 30.58%!] Semi-Medium 2.01-4 4. Therefore, it is reMedium 4-10 vealed that the total area Large > 10 *Landless and Semi-Landless sub- operated has been declined categories are included within the between the forty years peMarginal broad category. riod of 1960 & 1992, [Source: NSS Reports, GoI] whereas the number of op-

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erational holdings have been increased considerably. In other words, average operated area per holding has been decreased sharply over the years 1960-91. NSS Report No. 407 states that in these range of forty years the average size and/or holding has been decreased by nearly 50% (or by half)! In 1992 the average area operated was 1.41 hectare or 3.52 acre approximately. 5. Fragmentation: Number of parcels per holding has also been decreased drastically from 5.7 in 1960-61 to 2.7 in 1991-92. According to many commentators, this parcellisation process in landholdings made many holdings nonviable for cultivation. 6. Few Comments from Update: Table 2 describes the size of operational holdings. According to NSSO and/or GoI, the operational land holdings less than 0.002 hectare or 0.015 bigha are landless; holdings between 0.002 & 0.2 hectare (0.015 bigha to 1.5 bigha) is near-landless. Other categories are described in Table 2. But, the size distribution of operational holdings described as

Table 3: Distribution of Operational Holdings (%)

Category of Holdings Marginal (< 1.01) Small (1.01-2) Semi-medium (2.01-4) Medium (4-10) Large (> 10) Percentage distribution of operational holdings 60-61 39.1 22.6 19.8 14.0 4.5 70-71 45.8 22.4 17.7 11.1 3.1 81-82 56.0 19.3 14.2 8.6 1.9 91-92 62.8 17.8 12.0 6.1 1.3 95-96 61.2 18.7 12.8 6.1 1.2

[Source: Same as Table 1]

Table 4: Percentage Distribution of Operated Area by Category of Operational Holdings

Category of Holdings Marginal (< 1.01) Small (1.01-2) Semi-medium (2.01-4) Medium (4-10) Large (> 10) Percentage distribution of operated area 60-61 6.9 12.3 20.7 31.2 29.0 70-71 9.2 14.8 22.6 30.5 23.0 81-82 11.5 16.6 23.6 30.1 18.2 91-92 15.6 18.7 24.1 26.4 15.2 95-96 17.2 18.8 23.8 25.3 14.8

[Source: Same as Table 1]

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marginal, small, etc. reflect nothing real picture about the economic and social status (i.e., about the class/stratum position according to production relations) of the lower strata of the peasants. Even the much acclaimed Census 2001 fails to provide any picture about this. The discrepancies and loopholes in the Surveys/Census Reports are as follows: Firstly, the word peasants does not find any place in the dictionary or consideration of governmental agencies. Instead of peasants they categorise the cultivating populations as farmers who actually operate capitalist farms. Sadly, many left organisations also categorise these cultivating populations as farmers showing grave misconception about these section. Secondly, the NSSO and/or GoI do not recognise the landless cultivating population as peasants. In the editorial comments on this section it is explained how the GoI refuses to recognise the landless peasant households as peasants who cultivate a piece of land either as an sharecropper (and/or leaseholder) or as an agricultural worker. In several surveys done by the governmental agencies little attention has been shown about the economic and social status of these overwhelming sections. Thirdly, many observers of landholdings patterns in India have different views about the landlessness figures presented by NSSO. One of them describes holdings of < 0.4 hectare (i.e., < 3 bigha) as landless. If his studies are followed [source: by K. Hanumant

Table 5: Rural Landless Households (% of rural households)

Year 1960-61 1970-71 1981-82 1991-92 1995-96 Landless (<0.002 ha) 11.68 9.64 11.33 11.25 na Near Landless (0.002-0.2 ha) 26.22 27.78 28.60 31.15 na Total 37.90 37.42 39.43 42.40 41.64

[Sources: 17th, 26th, & 37th rounds of NSS; quoted in Economic & Political Weekly (EPW), 25.12.1999; Data of the last column are derived from Agricultural Census, 1995-96, GoI]

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Rao, http://nird.ap.nic.in/res03_4.html], the real landlessness will be much higher among the Indian peasants. Fourthly, no detail picture can be derived from Table 5 presented by NSSO (and particularly by the Report No. 407 which is regarded as the most important databases of landholding patterns) about the landless and semi-landless holdings. On the basis of the categorisation of NSSO about the landlessness (i.e., 0.0-0.2 hectare categories), their percentage are nearly 42% of all holdings (in 1991-92). Clearly, most of these holdings are involved in agricultural activities. In absolute terms these are roughly 4.45 crore holdings. Some plots are so small that they can be used only for homesteads acknowledged by NSSO. Moreover, among the landless social groups percentage of abosolute landless are 13.34% for SCs & 11.50% for STs respectively. No more information has been provided by the NSS Reports about this landless categories. If the study of K.H. Rao is followed (mentioned above) the landless holdings will be greater. According to his study, landlessness has been growing at the rate of 0.3 million per annum in rural areas during 1971-72 to 1991-92. [The Rural Labour Enquiry 1999-2000 provides more information about landlessness which is discussed later.] Fifthly, the GoI, NSSO, etc. shed much tears about the marginalisation of holdings in their survey reports. But this categorisation of marginality does not help us to gather any real picture about the holdings. The NSSO & Co. categorise the holdings as marginal, small, semi-medium, etc. depending solely upon the size of land operated. These type of categorisation provide little about the actual state of affairs in the livelihoods who operate these type of holdings. The loopholes and/or fallacies in above categorisations are as follows: Marginal holdings are less than 1.01 hectare of land and according to 1991-92 survey these are nearly 63% of all holdings (see Table 3). In absolute number these are roughly 6.52 crore (calculated from the Table 1). Out of this category, holdings of 0-0.2 hectare of land or nearly 42% may be excluded as these are classified by NSSO as landless and semi-landless. So, the remaining

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21% holdings can be said as the marginal measuring 0.21-1.01 hectares. In absolute terms, these are nearly 2.07 crore. Accordingly Small holdings (1.01-2 hectares) are 18% of all holdings numbering nearly 1.86 crore. Now comes the Semi-medium holdings (2-4 hectare) numbering 1.24 crore (12%). These types of classifications demonstrate little. GoI and NSSO strive to establish by the categorisation of marginal that these holdings are so tiny in size that these are simply uneconomic to operate and hence they are marginal. This interpretation sounds enough to any ignorant person unaware of the agricultural practices. But to anyone having some knowledge about cultivation and/or rural characteristics these classifications are very much distorted and flawed. In fact, several questions are being unanswered in these survey reports: What are the type of the land under these holdings? Is it fertile or fallow? Is it irrigated? Is it mono-cropped, bi-cropped, or tricropped? Or in other words what is the cropping intensity (i.e., how much times these are cultivated annually)? What is the location of the land far from the source of water or near to it? What is the charges of the water used? What are the charges of power consumed? An example: a marginal holding measuring 1 hectare of fertile, thrice-cropped irrigated land is economically viable than a small holding measuring a semi-fertile mono-cropped 2 hectare land. Is the land holding parcellised into several plots? How many parcels the holding have and what is the distance between these parcels? How much modern implements can be used in these holdings (more parcelised the land, less modern implements can be used)? What are the rents of these implements? An example: a small holding measuring 1.5 hectare of nonparcelised land is more viable than a semi-medium holding measuring 2.5 hectare land parcellised into three mutually distant plots. Are institutional credits of banks and/or NABARD accessible to the household operating these type of holdings? How many of

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them are indebted to the usurers and how much? An example: a heavily indebted household (to usurious capital) operating a small holding may be in utter distress than a nonindebted household operating a marginal holding. How many family-members are there in each household operating a particular size of holding? One may have three members two of which can cultivate. Another may have six members only two of which can cultivate. Which one is more viable? These are the questions completely overlooked by the government surveys. Hence, from the categorisation of marginal, small etc. solely depending upon the land-size, almost no real class picture comes out. In fact, in the Indian villages, these type of classification have little meaning to the sons of soil the peasants. The holdings operated can be classified as very poor or poor or medium or rich depending upon several factors (some of which are cited above). But no or little data have been provided by the Survey Reports regarding these factors. Moreover, if the factors stated above are linked to assess the viability of the holdings of all sizes (i.e., from marginal to medium & large), it may be found that the medium and/or large holdings will show mixed results. In real life, many small holdings in West Bengal are more economic than a semi-medium holding depending upon the factors related with nature & scale of cultivation. Moreover, whether the holdings are economic or not depend on other important factors such as the relations of production semi-feudal or capitalist. In Punjab & Haryana where method of capitalist cultivation is applied in an wider scale, medium and/or large holdings are largely economic than the identical holdings in parts of Orissa or Madhya Pradesh where this method is less applied. Therefore, the extent of marginalisation cannot be evaluated properly from the data provided by the above survey reports. Still we are using these data as we have no other options. The bourgeois method of classification of operational holdings (this method was prescribed by the imperialist agencies such as FAO, World Bank, United Nations organisation, etc. in the fifties-sixties of the last

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60-61 39.1 22.6 19.8 14.0 4.5 91-92 62.8 17.8 12.0 6.1 1.3 % change over 60-61 +23.7 4.8 7.8 7.9 3.2 95-96 62.1 18.7 12.8 6.1 1.2 % change over 60-61 +23.0 3.9 7.0 7.9 3.3

Table 6: Percentage Changes in Operational Holdings

Categories Marginal Small Semi-medium Medium Large

[Source: Derived from NSS Report No. 407 & Agricultural Census 199596]

century) as marginal, small, etc. does not provide any real picture about the class divisions or class-demarcation among the rural peasants. In fact, these classifications according to classes can be done depending upon the development of peasants struggle as happened either in Russia or in China. The rising tide of peasant movements will make the class divisions clear & sharp in India also. At the present juncture (when the scale of the peasant movements is at one of its lowest ebbs), if its tried to classify the rural peasants depending upon the databases provided by the bourgeois methods of GoI/NSSO, these will lead him to a distorted/erratic conclusions. (Surprisingly, many left organisations/ journals are doing so.) Even Lenin and Mao-ze-Dong classified the peasants based on the then production relations.

B. Findings II:
1. During the forty to forty-five years period between 1960-61, 1991-92, and 1995-96 the percentage distribution of operational holdings has changed more drastically in the lowest class-size, i.e., in marginal category (demonstrated in Table 3). Update has derived these changes in Table 6. It is observed in the Table 6 that the marginal category of operational holdings has been increased during the last forty or fortyfive years by a whopping 23-24%! Thus it may be concluded that (as done by the NSSO) that marginalisation of holdings are growing rapidly. In the study of K.H. Rao (mentioned earlier) it is derived that:

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update 12 Indian agriculture can be aptly described as small holder agriculture with over two-thirds of holdings in every major state being marginal and small holdings. About 70 per cent of operated area was under these holdings in Kerala, West Bengal and Assam. In fact, marginalisation has been taking place at a considerable rate in several states... [http://nird.ap.nic.in/res03_4.html]

The Agricultural Census shows that 41.6% of the operational holdings are in fact less than 0.5 hectare (or less than 3.75 bigha). And another 38.7% holdings are between 0.5 hectare & 2 hectare. Therefore, in all-India basis, there are 80.3% holdings either marginal or small. If this analysis is followed, it is found that four-fifths of the operational holdings are in fact, small holdings in all-India basis.
[What does it indicate? Does it not indicate the land hunger among the landless peasants in rural India? Even the Land Reform doctor of the US imperialism, Wolf Ladejinsky commented in the late sixties that India is a country with great land hunger. This question of land hunger is pertinent because of the fact that many left journals/organisations dont recognise it. Follow again. Update]

2. Update has tried to measure the marginalisation process of the holdings from another angle. If the class-sizes of the operational holdings are measured only by the size of land operated (as done by the NSSO), the lowest categories should include both marginal and small categories as poor [Update is consciously using this term as it speaks more than the terms marginal or small] holdings. In real life, the holdings of land size between 0.2-2 hectares have little differences in economic scale (as all the factors cited above are not coexisted concurrently). These class-sizes may be called as poor. If these two categories (i.e., holdings of <2 ha) are taken together, the percentage of poor categories is increased from cumulative percentage of 61.6 (1960-61) to 80.6 (1991-92). It means that out of total operational holdings not less than 80.6% are either poor or marginalised. In other words, more than four-fifth of the operational holdings are poor or marginalised. This is the true face of the holdings pattern on question of economic viability. [Note Box 2 fot further illusration.] (Though, strictly

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17

Box 2: Facts deserving your attention

Economic Holding: Land needed to meet the basic needs of a five-member family in each state under the prevailing productivity conditions is referred to as economic holding. During 1970-73, the economic holdings varied from 1.13 hectares in Kerala to 5.84 hectares in Rajasthan. By 1998-99, the economic holding size dipped to 0.31 hectares in Tamil Nadu and to a maximum of 2.41 hectares in Rajasthan. In seven states, the size of economic holding was less than one hectare in 1998-99. Sub-Optimal Holdings: Holdings with operated area less than the economic size are called suboptimal holdings. Percentage of sub-optimal holdings was about 75 at allIndia level. Vulnerability of livelihoods due to sub-optimal landholdings was high in West Bengal, Rajasthan, Orissa, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, J&K, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar and Assam. Rural Poverty: Rural poverty has been heavily concentrated in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh in early 70s. During 1983-84: Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. During 1993-94: Assam, Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. During 1999-00: Assam, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. These states accounted for over 80 per cent of rural poor in the country in the respective periods. [Source: http://nird.ap.nic.in/res03_4.html]

speaking from class angle all of them are not poor peasants) 3. In absolute terms, during 1991-92, the numbers of marginal operational holdings were 586.8 lakh and that of small operational holdings were 166.34 lakh. Therefore, the total number of poor or marginalised operational holdings were 753.14 lakh (a 2.4 fold increase over the 1960-61 figures)! 4. Table 7 (derived from the NSSO data) will demonstrate the percentage change of operated area by each category during the forty to forty-five years period.

18

update 12

Table 7: Percentage Changes in Operated Area by Each Category

Categories Marginal Small Semi-medium Medium Large 60-61 6.9 12.3 20.7 31.2 29.0 91-92 15.6 18.7 24.1 26.4 15.2 % change over 60-61 +8.7 +6.7 +3.4 4.8 13.2 95-96 17.2 18.8 23.8 25.3 14.8 % change over 60-61 +10.3 +6.5 +3.1 5.9 14.2

[Source: Derived from NSS Report No. 407 & Agricultural Census 199596]

5. Table 7 shows that the marginal+small operational holdings measuring less than 2 hectares (according to Update these may be recognised as poor) operate 19% of operated area in 1960-61 which is increased to 34% in 1991-92. This means more holdings are rendered poor in the last forty to forty-five years! 6. Apparently this is no doubt an increased share of operated area held by the marginal+small or poor categories in 1991-92. In fact, Table 7 shows that all the categories except medium and large categories operate more area in 1991-92 than 1960-61 in percentage. Thus it may be concluded that the top classes comprising medium & large categories lost their predominance (in 60-61 they operate 60.2% of operational area and in 91-92 their share was reduced to 44.2% i.e., a 16 percentage point of decrease is observed). But this phenomenon of losing predominance by the top classes will be faded away if we look into the figures below: i) In 1960-61 the medium+small categories [poor categories Update] comprising 62% of operational holdings held 19% of operated area. And in 1991-92, being the 80.6% of operational holdings operate 34% of operational area! Hence, in real terms as a category they have gained almost nothing. ii) Conversely, in 1960-61, the top categories (medium+large, i.e., operators of more than 4 hectare of operational land) comprising 18.5% of operational households operate 60.2% of land. And in 1991-92, these categories (7.4%) operate

update 12

19

41.6%! iii) Clearly, the drum-beatings of land reform programmes under the aegis of GoI produces nothing but more inequality. 7. The figures given below (derived from the data presented by NSS Report 407) show that with respect to the amount of area per each holding inequality or land concentration is gradually increased surpassing all previous records:

Concentration (or Inequality) in Operated Area:

Bottom 30% operated 4.6% area in 60-61 and 3% in 91-92 Bottom 60% operated 18.3% area in 60-61 and 14.2% in 9192 Bottom 80% operated 34% area in 91-92 Top 10% operated 46% area in 60-61 and 47.6% in 91-92 Top 5% operated 30.5% area in 60-61 and 33.6% in 91-92. 8. Note also the Table 8 showing this incidence of inequality or concentration of distribution of operated area state-wise. The figures given state-wise follow the national pattern almost identically. 9. From the Table 8 it is revealed that in the selected states (including in land-reform-famed West Bengal), the percentage of marginal+small or poor operational holdings (i.e., <2 ha) rose substantially during the thirty years period (1970-71 to 1991-92). But, in Punjab & Haryana, percentage of these poor categories rose during the 80s, after declining sharply in the 70s (i.e., during the peak period of Green Revolution). Moreover, the land concentration in the upper rungs of the operational holdings in Haryana and Punjab is specially noticeable. 10. The percentage of medium+large categories, i.e., the top categories declined in the states (which is general trend in almost all states). Moreover, the percentage of land operated by these categories has been decreased. But with careful scrutiny of the Table 8 reveals that a small minority of the operational holdings remains occupied with large percentage of operating area and this trend is more or less observed in all the states (except in West Bengal & Bihar to a certain extent).

20

Table 8: Concentration (or Inequality) in Operated Area (Selected States)

Size Class/Category 1970-71 (%) 1991-92 (% & % change)

State

Andhra Pradesh

Assam

Bihar

Haryana

Marginal (<1 ha) Small (1-2 ha) Marginal+Small (<2 ha) Medium (4-10 ha) Large (>10 ha) Medium+Large (>4 ha) Marginal (<1 ha) Small (1-2 ha) Marginal+Small (<2 ha) Medium (4-10 ha) Large (>10 ha) Medium+Large (>4 ha) Marginal Small Marginal+Small Medium Large Medium+Large Marginal Small Marginal+Small Madium Large Medium+Large

Holding 47.29 19.14 66.43 11.87 3.47 15.34 52.40 30.23 82.63 2.99 0.08 3.07 58.86 23.32 82.18 4.52 0.45 4.97 17.48 17.54 35.02 31.06 5.62 36.68

Area 9.28 11.74 21.02 31.32 25.75 57.07 21.64 26.22 47.86 12.20 0.07 12.27 18.14 26.22 44.36 21.01 5.71 26.72 2.53 6.54 9.07 49.24 21.83 71.07

Holding 59.27 (+11.98) 21.38 (+2.24) 80.65 (+14.22) 5.38 (6.49) 0.81 (2.66) 6.19 (9.15) 70.78 (+18.38) 19.99 (10.24) 90.77 (+8.14) 1.51 (1.48) 0.19 (+0.11) 1.70 (1.37) 76.76 (+17.9) 13.68 (9.64) 90.44 (+8.26) 2.48 (2.04) 0.22 (0.23) 2.70 (2.27) 50.73 (+33.25) 13.50 (4.04) 64.23 (+29.21) 11.49 (19.57) 3.96 (1.66) 15.45 (21.23)

Area 17.54 (+8.26) 23.34 (+11.6) 40.88 (+19.86) 23.49 (7.83) 9.40 (16.35) 32.89 (24.18) 34.24 (+12.6) 25.14 (1.08) 59.38 (+11.52) 9.07 (3.13) 2.55 (+2.48) 11.62 (+0.65) 29.1 (+10.87) 25.14 (1.08) 54.15 (+9.79) 18.24 (2.77) 3.92 (1.79) 22.16 (4.56) 5.32 (+2.79) 8.81 (+2.27) 14013 (+5.06) 29.38 (19.86) 30.95 (+9.12) 60.33 (10.74)

update 12

Table 8: Contd....

update 12

Punjab

Uttar Pradesh

West Bengal

Marginal Small Marginal+Small Medium Large Medium+Large Marginal Small Marginal+Small Medium Large Medium+Large Marginal Small Marginal+Small Medium Large Medium+Large

11.71 19.06 30.77 30.51 6.02 36.53 49.78 26.92 76.7 6.20 0.65 6.85 61.21 22.80 84.01 2.98 0.07 3.05

1.46 7.09 8.55 45.05 22.12 61.17 15.64 25.30 40.94 23.33 5.97 29.30 24.80 28.92 53.72 14.58 0.64 15.22

63.22 (+51.51) 11.42 (7.64) 74.64 (+43.87) 9.82 (20.69) 1.69 (4.83) 11.51 (25.02) 68.01 (+18.23) 18.52 (8.40) 86.53 (+9.83) 3.33 (2.87) 0.29 (0.36) 3.62 (3.23) 80.69 (+19.48) 13.43 (9.37) 94.12 (+10.11) 0.88 (2.10) 0.00 (0.07) 0.88 (2.17)

6.20 (+4.74) 10.74 (+3.65) 16.94 (+8.39) 40.55 (4.5) 15.79 (6.33) 56.34 (10.83) 24.96 (+9.32) 26.31 (+1.01) 51.27 (+10.33) 18.18 (5.15) 4.25 (1.72) 22.43 (6.87) 39.98 (+15.18) 30.69 (+1.77) 70.67 (+16.95) 7.27 (7.31) 0.00 (0.64) 7.27 (7.95)

[Source: Derived from NSS Report 407]

21

11. The figures given in Table 8 shows that in: Andhra Pradesh bottom 66% operated 21% area in 70-71 and bottom 81% operated 41% area in 91-92; topmost 15% operated 57% area in 70-71 and topmost 6% operated 33% area in 91-92. Assam bottom 83% operated 48% area in 70-71 and bottom 91% operated 59% area in 91-92; topmost 3% operated 12% area in 70-71 and topmost 2% operated 12% area in 91-92. Bihar bottom 82% operated 44% area in 70-71 and bottom 90% operated 54% area in 91-92; topmost 5% operated 27% area in 70-71 and topmost 3% operated 22% area in 91-92. Haryana bottom 35% operated 9% area in 60-61 and bottom 64% operated 14% area in 91-92; topmost 37% operated 71% area in 60-61 and topmost 15% operated 60% area in 91-92. Punjab bottom 31% operated 9% area in 60-61 and bottom 75% operated 17% area in 91-92; topmost 37% operated 67% area in 70-71 and topmost 12% operated 56% area in 91-92. Uttar Pradesh bottom 77% operated 41% area in 70-71 and bottom 86% operated 51% area in 91-92; topmost 7% operated 29% area in 70-71 and topmost 4% operated 22% area in 91-92. West Bengal bottom 84% operated 54% area in 70-71 and bottom 94% operated 71% area in 91-92; topmost 3% operated 15% area in 70-71 and topmost 1% operated 7% area in 91-92.

Landholding Patterns among SCs, STs, & other Social Groups

[Agricultural Census 1995-96 has enumerated landholding patterns among the Social Groups (i.e., SC, ST, & Upper Castes+OBCs) of rural households. The enumerations, though skewed and/or incomplete as earlier reports of the NSSO, provide some startling aspects about the landholding patterns among the social groups in the countryside. Unfortunately this Census does not account the OBCs separately. See Table 9 and Findings III. It must be remembered that due to the rounding off the data, total may not tally in the following enumerations.]

C. Findings III:
1. Out of the total Rural Households, SC rural households constitute slightly more than 22%, STs are 11%, OBCs are 37%, and the other and/or upper castes are 29%. (Rural Labour Enquiry 1999-2000, http://labourbureau.nic.in) 2. Operational Holdings: From the data provided by the Agricultural Census 1995-96, it is found that out of total operational holdings during 1995-96, Scheduled Caste (SC) groups constitute a mere 12.7% (being 22% of rural households) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) groups 8.2% (being 11% of rural households). Together they form 21% though being 33% of the rural households. Rest of the operational holdings (79%) constitute upper castes (or groups)+ the OBCs! 3. Area Operated: Out of the total area operated, SC groups operate only 8.2% and ST groups 10.7%. Therefore, 21% operational holdings of SC+ST groups operate nearly 19% area. On the other hand, upper castes (or groups)+the OBCs (79%) operate 81% area! Therefore, a stunning inequality is expressed through these figures. In other words, this is the true face of Rural India buried under the pompous promises of the parliamentary leaders. 4. These types of inequalities are revealed in different categories of operational holdings also (See Table 9). As for example, marginal categories belonging to upper caste+OBCs are 78.6% of

24

Table 9: Percentage of Operational Holdings & Operated Area by Social Groups (or Castes) in 1995-96 (All India)
SC Holdings 6.15 10.80 12.46 12.46 9.61 Area 7.58 10.84 12.33 12.56 8.52 Holdings 78.62 78.69 79.83 81.91 85.36 Area 78.78 78.82 80.12 81.91 83.66 ST Upper caste+OBCs

Holdings Area Marginal 15.23 13.64 Small 10.51 10.34 Semi-medium 7.71 7.55 Medium 5.63 5.53 Large 5.03 4.82 Note: Total may not tally due to rounding off

[Source: Derived from data presented by Agricultural Census 1995-96]

Table 10: Landholding Patterns among Social Groups (%) (All India)
All Social Groups Holdings 73.8 15.5 89.3 7.5 2.7 0.5 3.2 Area 28.6 23.7 52.3 22.0 17.1 8.7 25.8 Holdings 45.9 24.5 70.5 18.7 9.4 1.42 10.9 SC ST Area 12.2 19.0 31.1 27.4 29.7 11.7 41.4 Upper caste+OBCs Holdings 61.2 18.6 79.9 12.6 6.3 1.3 7.6 Area 16.7 18.3 35.0 23.6 25.6 15.8 41.4

Holdings Area Marginal 62.1 17.2 Small 18.7 18.8 Marginal+Small 80.8 36.0 Semi-medium 12.8 23.8 Medium 6.1 25.3 Large 1.2 14.8 Medium+Large 7.3 40.1 Note: Total may not tally due to rounding off

update 12

[Source: Derived from data presented by Agricultural Census 1995-96]

update 12

25

holdings who operate 78.9% area. On the other hand, large categories of these social groups are 85.4% who operate 86.7% area! Hence, the inequalities are more prominent at the upper rungs, i.e., greater percentage of operational holdings and operated area both are concentrated in the hands of the upper castes+OBCs. If this Census can provide us data for the OBCs separately we believe the picture will be more colourful. The overall revelations (calculated from raw data provided by the Agricultural Census 1995-96) are as follows: 21.4% marginal+small (bottom and/or poor) SCs+STs operate 21.2% area. 78.6% marginal+small upper castes+OBCs operate 78.8% area. Moreover, 17.7% medium+large (top) SCs+STs operate 16.3% area. 82.3% medium+large (top) upper castes+OBCs operate 83.7% area! 5. Some startling features are revealing from Table 10 which demonstrates the landholding pattern among the social groups. These aspects are as follows: There are more poor holdings in the SC group (nearly 90%) than STs (70.5%). Among the upper castes+OBCs, this percentage (nearly 80%) follow more or less national pattern. The poor categories belonging to the SCs operate more percentage of area (52%) than the STs (31%) & upper castes+OBCs (35%). In this case also, the upper caste+OBCs groups show almost similar pattern of the national level. Few operational holdings by the SCs belong to the top categories; whereas the upper caste+OBCs exhibit almost similar pattern of the country. In short, the Table 10 shows: For For For For SC groups, bottom (or poor) 90% operate 52% area. ST groups, bottom 70% operate 31% area. Upper Caste+OBCs, bottom 80% operate 35% area. all social groups bottom 7.3% operate 40% area.

26

update 12

Moreover, For SC groups, top 3% operate 26% area. For ST groups top 11% operate 41% area. For Upper Caste+OBCs top 8% operate 41% area. For all social groups top 7.6% operate 40% area.

Irrigation Pattern by Operational Holdings & Area Operated

[Surprisingly, The Agricultural Census 1995-96 does not provide any clue about the landlessness among the social groups of SCs, STs, and other groups. In this respect, Rural Labour Enquiry provides some data which is discussed later. Nevertheless, the data presented by the Agricultural Census 199596 presents some interesting information about the irrigation status of the operational holdings in general and by social groups in particular. These information may be valuable to the readers since the intensity of irrigation is an important factor in determining the productivity of the holdings as well as an indicator of adoption of modern (and/or capitalist) method of cultivation. These data are presented in Table 11.]

D. Findings IV:
1. The irrigation status of the operational holdings has been subdivided into three: i) wholly irrigated holdings the holdings which receive irrigation facilities for the all season; ii) unirrigated holdings the holdings do not receive the irrigation facilities at all; iii) partly irrigated holdings the holdings receiving irrigation facilities sometimes annually. An example: a holding receiving irrigation for one day in a year will be called partly irrigated! 2. From the Agricultural Census 1995-96 it is found that a staggering percentage (47.3%) of all operational holdings do not get irrigation at all. Moreover, a considerable percentage (42%) of the operated area are unirrigated. Only 32.4% of the operational holdings are wholly irrigated. The operated area which are wholly irrigated is a mere 23%. 16% of operational holdings are partly irrigated. The operated area receiving irrigation partly is 21.4%.

Table 11: Percentage of Operational Holdings & Area Operated by Irrigation Status & by Social Groups (All India)
update 12
Wholly irrigated holdings Social Groups SC ST Upper Castes+OBCs All groups SC ST Upper Castes+OBCs All groups SC ST Upper Castes+OBCs All groups SC ST Upper Castes+OBCs All groups SC ST Upper Castes+OBCs All groups 6.8 3.9 17.1 15.2 5.1 3.1 14.4 13.0 71.1 65.6 50.0 52.4 13.9 5.1 23.1 20.3 11.9 4.0 20.8 18.2 55.8 66.5 44.4 47.8 18.2 6.4 26.6 23.5 16.6 5.5 24.7 21.7 54.0 70.1 46.1 50.0 47.5 60.1 41.0 43.8 48.3 54.0 38.7 41.1 57.0 49.0 40.3 41.9 25.0 8.8 30.9 27.9 22.7 8.0 28.8 26.0 51.0 72.1 46.1 49.4 46.6 64.8 41.9 45.0 20.2 17.1 20.1 19.8 24.8 22.1 24.9 24.6 28.0 27.7 30.7 30.2 18.6 29.6 31.2 30.4 38.2 13.7 38.6 37.0 36.9 12.6 39.7 37.2 45.1 72.1 44.1 46.0 36.9 63.2 34.9 37.3 10.4 11.1 11.6 11.4 Holdings Area Holdings Area Holdings Wholly unirrigated holdings Partly irrigated holdings Area 12.8 10.7 13.1 12.9 18.7 15.7 18.6 18.3 23.0 19.9 23.0 22.6 24.3 22.0 27.7 26.8 13.6 20.4 25.0 24.0

Categories

Marginal

Small

Semi-medium

Medium

Large

Note: Total may not tally due to rounding off

27

[Source: Derived from Agricultural Census 1995-96]

28

update 12

3. Hence, percentage of the all operational holdings receiving whole+part irrigations is 48.4%. And the respective percentage for the operated area is 44.4%. This is a pathetic situation of the irrigation status revealed through these figures. This situation persists even after the 60 years of independence! 4. If we study the irrigation status according to the categories (i.e., marginal, small, etc.), more interesting phenomena will be observed. It will be seen that smaller the operational holdings, more they get irrigation facilities. Study about marginal category belonging to all social groups shows that 37% of operational holdings and 37.2% of operated area are wholly irrigated. Respective figures for the large categories belonging to all social groups are starkly opposite: only 15.2% of operational holdings and 13% of operated area are wholly irrigated. Corresponding figures (presented in Table 11) for other categories show the similar trend. The figures are as follows: For the marginal, as high as 46% of holdings are unirrigated. For the small, as high as 49% of holdings are unirrigated. For the large, as high as 52% of holdings are unirrigated. Moreover, For the marginal, 37% of area is wholly irrigated. For the large, only 13% of area is wholly irrigated. 5. It is noticeable that considering availability of irrigation facilities as a whole (i.e., wholly irrigated+partly irrigated), the respective figures for the categories at the two extreme ends (i.e., marginal & large) are almost similar. For the marginal, 48.4% of holdings are either wholly or partly irrigated. For the small nearly 48% of holdings are either wholly or partly irrigated. For the medium 50.5% of holdings are either wholly or partly irrigated. For the large 45.6% of holdings are either wholly or partly irrigated.

update 12

29

6. It is observed from the above analysis that large holdings use irrigation facilities less than smaller holdings. These phenomena indicate that the large holdings cannot be said forward per se in adopting the irrigation facilities. On the contrary, it must be noticeable that among the total irrigated land (which is slightly more than one-third of the cultivable area in national level) less amount is attributed to the large holdings. Hence a question arises are large holdings more backward?

Irrigation Pattern by Social Groups

[Next section provides information about the irrigation status by Social Groups, i.e., by SCs, STs, & Upper Caste+OBCs. Data for this analysis will be available in Table 11. It must be remembered that due to the rounding off the data, total may not tally.]

E. Findings V:
1. It is revealed from the figures presented by the Table 11 that irrigation is far to reach for the ST groups cutting across the categories (i.e., irrespective of the size of holdings). For the STs, 72% of marginal holdings are wholly unirrigated. The area remained unirrigated is 63%. For the STs, 65.6% of large holdings are wholly unirrigated. The area remained unirrigated is 49%.

Table 11A: Usage of Fertilisers, Farm Yard Manure & Pesticides by Categories, 1991-92 (in Tonnes)
Categories % of Area treated with Fertilisers 63.6 62.6 61.0 58.0 47.0 59.1 N+P+K* used per unit Area 72.2 65.5 61.7 56.2 46.0 60.7 Farm Yard Manure used per unit Area 36.8 37.4 32.5 28.0 19.0 31.2 Pesticides used per unit Area 15.5 17.8 19.5 20.8 17.6 18.6

Marginal Small Semi-medium Medium Large All Groups

*N+P+K is the measure of total consumption of nutrients used.

[Source: All India Report on Input Survey, 1991-92; Agriculture Census Division, Ministry of Agriculture, GoI]

Therefore, for the STs, larger the holdings, more is the availability of irrigation. These features are contrary to the general phenomena for all social groups. 2. But for the SCs & upper castes+OBCs, the irrigation status resemble the general pattern, i.e., larger the holdings, less is the availability of irrigation.

Application of Inputs by Landholdings

[Inputs Survey conducted in 1991-92 shows some interesting features about the usage pattern of different inputs (in percentage and per unit area) by different categories. See Table 11A and Findings VI.]

F. Findings VI:
1. Table 11A shows that larger the holdings, less percentage of area is treated with fertilisers, farm yard manures. The Large holdings (>10 hectare) are least advanced with respect to the usage of fertilisers. They are well below (47%) the national average (59%). Marginal & small categories are more advanced in this regard. 2. Similar trend is observed in the pattern of N+P+K used per unit area. Marginal holdings use these nutrients (72.2 tonnes per unit area) far more than the medium & large categories (56 & 46 tonnes per unit area respectively). In fact, the bottom categories (marginal+small) use more nutrients per unit area than the national average. 3. Different pattern is observed in usage of pesticides per unit area. In this case, top holdings use more pesticides than the bottom holdings.

Landless Agricultural Labour Households

[The Rural Labour Enquiry Report on General Characteristics of Rural Labour Households, 1999-2000 provides some important data about the landholding pattern. Moreover, this Labour Enquiry deals with some important aspects related with the livelihoods of Rural Labour Households & Agricultural Labour Households. These aspects are landlessness, minimum wages, consumption expenditure unemployment & underemployment, etc. Moreover, these data provide some important information about the rural labour and/or agricultural labour households by social groups, i.e., by SCs, STs, & OBCs, depicting some actual state of affairs among these social groups. The figues for this discussion are demonstrated in Tables 12, 13, & 14. In Box 3 some terms are explained.]

G. Findings VI:
1. From the Table 12 it is found that the number of rural households is 137.1 million or 13.71 crore in 1999-2000. Out of these 55.11 million (40.2%) are rural labour households and 44.15 million (32.2%) are agricultural labour households.

Table 12: Rural Labour Households & Agricultural Labour Households (All India) (in million)
63-65 74-75 Number of rural households % of rural labour households (RLH) to rural hhs % of agricultural labour hhs (ALH) to rural hhs Average size of the ALH Average no. of wage-earners (ALH) 70.4 25.4 82.1 30.3 77-78 95.7 36.8 83 87-88 93-94 99-00 119.5 38.3 137.1 40.2 100.5 108.4 37.3 39.7

21.8

25.3

29.9

30.7

30.7

30.3

32.2

4.5

4.8

4.7

4.6

4.6

4.4

4.6

2.0

2.2

1.8

1.9

1.4

1.7

1.8

[Source: Rural Enquiry Report on General Characteristics of Rural Labour Households, 1999-2000; http://labourbureau.nic.in]

32

update 12

Table 13: Rural Labour Households & Agricultural Labour Households by Social Groups (All India) (million)
Year Rural hhs Rural Labour hhs Agricultural Labour hhs 1993 1999-00 1993 1999-00 1993 1999-00 SC 25.45 30.35 15.13 18.64 12.54 15.59 ST 12.76 15.14 6.11 7.34 4.82 6.00 OBC na 50.58 na 18.77 na 14.78 Others 81.32* 41.02 24.52* 10.39 18.89* 7.80 All Groups 119.53 137.08 45.77 55.13 36.26 44.18

*In 1993 survey OBC social groups are not enumerated. These groups are clubbed together with other (upper) castes/groups.

[Source: Same as Table 12]

2. Table 13 provides data for the social groups. It is found that SC rural households are 30.35 million (22%), STs are 15.14 million (11%), OBCs are 50.58 million (37%), and the upper castes are 41.02 million (30%). Therefore, in the rural India, 70% households belong to the lower rungs and 30% belong to the upper rungs of social groups. 3. But in case of agricultural labour households different patterns is observed. Table 14 provides some figures which glaringly point out that larger proportion of the agricultural labour households belong to the lower castes or groups. As for an example: Out of the SC rural households (which are 22% of all rural households), 51.4% are agricultural labour households. Out of the ST rural Table 14: Rural Labour Hhs & households (which are Agricultural Labour Hhs out of Rural 11% of all rural Hhs by Social Groups (%) (99-00) households), 39.6% are agricultural labour Rural Labour Agricultural Labour households. Households Households SC 61.4 51.4 Out of the OBC ruST 48.5 39.6 ral households (which OBC 37.1 29.2 are 37% of all rural Others 25.3 19.0 households), 29.2% All groups 40.2 32.2 are agricultural labour [Source: Derived from Table 12] households.

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33

Out of the upper caste rural households (which are 30% of all rural households), only 19% are agricultural labour households. Thus, it can be concluded that an overwhelmingly larger proportion of lower caste rural households are agricultural labour than the upper caste+OBCs. Box 3: Terms Explained
i) Household: A household is a group of persons normally living together and taking food from a common kitchen. A boarding and lodging house, a hotel or a hostel is treated as a cluster of households where each individual boarder (with his dependents or guests) forms a separate household. Households maintained and fed directly by institutional bodies such as those in prisons, police quarters, cantonments, hospitals, asylums, relief camps are, however, excluded from the scope of the survey. ii) Household Size: The number of normally resident members of a household formed the size of the household. It included temporary stayaways but excluded temporary visitors and guests. iii) Rural Labour Household: A household was classified as rural labour household if its major source of income during the last 365 days preceding the survey was more from wage paid manual labour (agricultural and/or non-agricultural) than either from paid non-manual employment or from self-employment. Rural labour households include agricultural labour households also. iv) Agriculture Labour Household: Of the households which are initially classified as Rural Labour Households, those deriving 50 percent or more of their total income from wage paid manual labour in agricultural activities are treated as agricultural labour households. v) Rural Labour Household With Cultivated Land: A household with cultivated land, either owned or taken on lease, was treated as household with land. Cultivated land was taken to mean the net area sown during the last calendar year (i.e. January to December, 1998) preceding the year of enquiry and included orchards and current fallows. vi) Wage Paid Manual Labour: A person who does manual work in return for wages in cash or kind or partly in cash and partly in kind (excluding exchange labour) is a wage paid manual labour. Salaries are also to be counted as wages. A person who is self-employed in manual work is not treated as a wage paid manual labour.
[Source: Rural Enquiry Report on General Characteristics of Rural Labour Households, 1999-2000; http://labourbureau.nic.in]

34

update 12 [The term Agricultural Labour Households (ALHs) is defined (in Box 3) as the Rural Labour Households (RLHs) who derive 50% or more of their total income from wage paid manual labour in agricultural activities. Understandably, these sections of the rural households deserve appropriate attention to comprehend the livelihoods of the poor peasants and agricultural workers in the rural India. It is a well-established fact that the majority of the peasant households belonging to the bottom categories (i.e., marginal+poor) are compelled to seek work in agricultural activities to make both ends meet. In case of agricultural rural households (ALHs), it may be found that some households possess and/or operate a piece of cultivated land. But this tiny piece of land is not economically viable to operate. Hence, most of these ALHs are in fact, landless. Table 15 depicts their landlessness by social groups and Table 16 presents data state-wise. Note also Table 17 for landlessness among the ALHs.]

H. Findings VII:
1. From Table 15, it is found that nearly 41% of the rural households of India are landless during 1999-2000. In our earlier discussions we have found from NSSO surveys that during the 1991-92 this figure was 42%. Hence no change has been developed in the landholding patterns during this period. In absolute number these landless rural households are 56 million or 5 crore 60 lakh (1999-00). 2. It is found from the Rural Labour Enquiry that the average size of these rural households is nearly 4.6. Hence in the rural India, not less than 257.6 million or 25 crore 76 lakh people are vulnerable since their families are landless. It is well known fact that little viable alternatives to agricultural activities have been created in rural India. So, majority of these rural landless households have no other options but to engage in agricultural works under any conditions forced upon them. 3. Among the SC groups of rural households, this picture is more grim. More than 55% of them are landless. In absolute numbers they are 16.86 million rural households. 4. Landlessness is less among the ST groups than the national

Table 15: Percentage of Rural Households, Agricultural Labour Households, & Labour Households With or Without Land by Social Groups (1999-2000)
Agricultural Labour Hhs. With Land 42.67 35.62 51.63 45.73 Without Land 57.33 64.38 48.37 54.27 With Land 41.12 34.49 52.89 42.70 Without Land 58.88 65.51 47.11 57.30 With Land 59.15 44.45 67.89 60.87 Rural Labour Hhs. All Rural Hhs. Without Land 40.85 55.55 32.11 39.13

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Categories

All Groups SCs STs OBCs

[Source: Rural Enquiry Report on General Characteristics of Rural Labour Households, 1999-2000; http:// labourbureau.nic.in]

Table 17: Landlesness among the Agricultural Labour Households (%) (1999-2000)
Nil (landless) 60.7 61.5 71.8 82.9 57.0 55.3 42.5 90.9 38.1 63.7 57.4 11.9 22.3 21.6 5.4 7.7 10.1 20.2 5.7 38.1 22.7 17.7 11.6 9.4 5.1 8.5 11.5 7.2 20.7 1.4 16.7 11.5 11.2 3.3 4.0 1.0 1.4 5.0 4.1 8.2 0.9 3.6 1.1 4.2 5.7 1.9 0.3 1.3 8.0 6.4 5.5 0.4 1.7 0.3 3.9 0.01-0.20 0.21-0.40 0.41-0.60 0.61-0.80 0.81-1.00 1.01-2.00 2.1 0.5 0.2 0.5 2.6 4.8 1.7 0.9 0.2 1.8 4.1 0.4 0.4 7.3 10.5 1.1 0.5 0.6 0.4 3.3 2.01 & above 0.6 0.9 1.6 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.1 0.5

Andhra Pradesh Assam Bihar Haryana Karnataka Maharashtra Orissa Punjab Uttar Pradesh West Bengal All India

[Source: Same as Table 15]

35

36

Table 16: Rural Households, Agricultural Labour Households, & Labour Households With or Without Land in Selected States (%) (1999-2000)
Agricultural Labour Hhs. With Land 39.37 38.43 28.25 17.16 42.98 44.84 57.39 9.03 61.86 36.23 42.67 60.63 61.57 71.75 82.84 57.02 55.16 42.61 90.97 38.14 63.77 57.33 36.62 37.74 27.80 18.12 41.71 41.08 55.65 8.79 56.50 34.68 41.12 63.38 62.26 72.20 81.88 58.29 58.92 44.35 91.21 43.50 65.32 58.88 47.65 64.42 53.34 50.74 57.79 54.05 61.64 38.81 73.78 50.21 59.15 Without Land With Land Without Land With Land Rural Labour Hhs. All Rural Hhs. Without Land 52.35 35.58 46.66 49.26 42.21 49.95 38.36 61.19 26.22 49.79 40.85

States

Andhra Pradesh Assam Bihar Haryana Karnataka Maharashtra Orissa Punjab Uttar Pradesh West Bengal All India

[Source: Sames as Table 15]

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average. OBCs show more or less identical pattern of the national level. It is found from the data provided by the Rural Labour Enquiry (not given in Table 15) that landlessness among the upper caste households is slightly less than national level. 5. Table 16 depicts the landlessness among the rural households state-wise. In this respect, the green-revolution-famed states like Punjab & Haryana show high incidence of landlessness (61% & 49% respectively). This horrible type of landlessness where more than or nearly half of the rural households are landless is visible also in Maharashtra and even in land-reform-famed West Bengal! 6. Agricultural Labour Households (ALHs) are 32.2% (44.15 million) of all rural households. Out of these households, 57% are landless. Moreover, Table 16 shows the landlessness among the ALHs state-wise. This landlessness pattern in the states selected, though following the national pattern to a certain extant, are grave in Punjab & Haryana (91% & 83%). Cases of Punjab & Haryana may be explained by many analysts (as a characteristic of capitalist method of farming) since they are green-revolutionfamed states where majority of the peasant holdings are occupied and made concentrated in few hands. But states like Bihar (famous for its backward & semi-feudal agricultural practices) are not far behind with nearly 83% landless among the ALHs. Even land-reform-famed West Bengal shows landlessness (64%) among the ALHs greater than the national average! 7. It seems peculiar that the agricultural labour households (ALHs) have some lands for cultivation. The data provided by Table 16 show that 42.67% of the ALHs are with lands. But more closer scrutiny may transform this fact into a mirage. In fact, Table 17 confirms that the landed ALHs are de facto landless. In our earlier discussions it is observed that landholding size between 0.00 hectare to 0.2 hectares (cited in Table 5) are declared as landless & near-landless by the surveying agencies of GoI. Following this reference frame, it is found from the Table 17 that 75% of ALHs are either landless and/or near-landless. The sizes of 0.21-0.40 hectare (found in the third column of Table 17) belong to the marginal category (11.2%) as stated in the Rural

Box: Facts deserving your attention

There were 55.1 million rural labour households and 44.2 million agricultural labour households constituting 40.2% & 32.2% of the total estimated rural households (137.1 million) in the country. A significant proportion of the rural labour households belonged to the weaker classes i.e. the scheduled castes (33.8%), the scheduled tribes (13.3%) and other backward classes (34%). The incidence of indebtedness among all rural labour households, defined as the percentage of indebted households to total rural labour households, declined from 35.1% in 1993-94 to 25.0% in 1999-2000. The scheduled castes rural labour households exhibited higher incidence (25.3%) whereas it was lower (22.9%) in case of scheduled tribes rural labour households at all-India level. The average debt per indebted rural labour household (Rs. 6049) in 1999-2000 recorded an increase of 90.9 percent over the level of debt (Rs. 3169) in 1993-94. The rural labour households of the scheduled castes and the scheduled tribes reported a lower extent of indebtedness (i.e. average debt per indebted households) at Rs. 5077 and Rs. 4781 respectively, whereas the other backward classes rural labour households reported a higher debt at Rs. 7731 during 1999-2000. A significant proportion of the total debt was for unproductive purposes such as households consumption (27.6%), marriages and other ceremonies (24%), repayment of debt (1%) and purchase of land and construction of building (21%). The debt for productive purposes constitute only 18.5% of the total debt. Money lenders continued to be the major source of debt (31.7%) though banks also have caught up with them (17.19%). Other sources, such as shopkeepers (7.13%), friends & relatives (15.14%) and cooperative societies (13.09%) are also significant contributors of the loan to the rural labour households. [Rural Labour Enquiry Report on Indebtedness among Rural Labour Households, 1999-2000; http://labourbureau.nic.in]

Labour Enquiry. Only 0.5% of the ALHs operate more than 2.01 hectare operational holdings. Thus the overwhelming percentage (75% + 11.2% = 86.2%) of ALHs are poor and are compelled to seek any type of manual work in agriculture under any conditions supposed to them.

Unemployment & Underemployment among Agricultural Labour Households

[Still many problems remain. The whopping percentage of Agricultural Labour Households (ALHs) seldom get full-time work. Most of the days in a year they remain unemployed or underemployed. Even the Rural Labour Enquiry promoted by GoI states, The landless labourers and marginal farmers (read: peasants Update) predominate the rural society. Due to seasonal nature (Whats a candid statement by our government!) of the agricultural activities they are remain unemployed during a major part of the year.... (The surveys) show that majority of the (labour) households were without occupation.... It may.... be observed that a majority of the members of Agricultural Labour Households (ALHs), like Rural Labour Households (RLHs) were without occupation. This means that most of the ALHs are without occupation, i.e., unemployed. The Labour Enquiry demonstrates more about them: At all-India level, of average household size of 4.65 persons..., 2.61 persons were without occupation, 1.74 persons were agricultural labourers, 0.10 persons were non-agricultural labourers and 0.20 persons were engaged in other occupations. In the following points obtained from the Rural Labour Enquiry this harrowing condition of the ALHs is explained. Note Table 18 for further elaborations.]

I. Findings VIII:
1. According to the Rural Labour Enquiry, out of 4.65 persons (average household size) in an agricultural labour household (ALH), 2.62 persons or 56.34% are non-occupied, i.e., unemployed. This is indeed a very high figure even if we discount for the elderly ones, children & disabled. 2. Only 1.74 persons or 37.42% in ALH are engaged in agricultural labour! Thus, the majority of the Agricultural labour households do not find any agricultural work. Whats a paradox! 3. Therefore, these households/labourforce are surplus in economic terms. They may be employed in small-scale & large-scale industries either in villages or in towns. But this is not happened

40

Table 18: Average Number & Percentage of Members Per Household in All Agricultural Labour Households by Usual Occupation (State-wise) (1999-2000)
Agricultural Labour 2.01 (48.7%) 1.61 (31.4%) 1.62 (33.5%) 1.09 (20.7%) 2.11 (44.4%) 2.05 (44.0%) 1.60 (35.9%) 1.19 (23.5%) 1.38 (27.0%) 1.32 (27.7%) 1.74 (37.4%) 0.10 (2.1%) 0.09 (1.9%) 0.11 (2.1%) 0.20 (3.9%) 0.05 (1.1%) 0.14 (3.1%) 0.18 (3.5%) 0.23 (4.5%) 0.30 (6.3%) 0.20 (4.3%) 0.06 (1.3%) 0.21 (4.5%) 0.08 (1.7%) 0.22 (4.6%) 0.02 (0.4%) 0.18 (3.4%) 0.10 (2.0%) 0.18 (3.4%) 0.14 (0.3%) 0.17 (0.3%) 0.09 (2.2%) 0.20 (4.8%) Non-agricultural Labour Other Occupations No Occupation 1.83 (44.3%) 3.21 (62.6%) 3.09 (64.0%) 3.81 (72.4%) 2.34 (49.2%) 2.34 (50.2%) 2.66 (59.8%) 3.49 (69.0%) 3.41 (61.2%) 3.05 (64.1%) 2.61 (56.1%) All 4.13 5.13 4.83 5.26 4.75 4.66 4.45 5.06 5.13 4.76 4.65

States

Andhra Pradesh

Assam

Bihar Haryana

Karnataka

Maharashtra

Orissa

Punjab

Uttar Pradesh

West Bengal

All India

[Source: Same as Table 15; percentage is derived by Update]

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owing to the underdevelopment of capitalist economies and industries all over the country. Hence, these agricultural labour households have little other options of getting jobs outside agriculture. They are compelled to settle in the villages; search any type of agricultural work for any amount of wages; sometimes get work but remained unemployed for majority days a year. Moreover, they are very much involved in agricultural practices. They are hungry for land; hungry for tilling a piece of land, if possible, as their own (which was observed by the land reforms guru Ladejinsky in India and elsewhere in the sixties & seventies of the last century). 4. Table 18 narrates some miserable stories about the non-occupation status (i.e., unemployment) of these ALHs state-wise. The stories are as follows: ALHs of green-revolution-famed Haryana & Punjab get least agricultural jobs (20.7% & 23.5% respectively). Therefore, incidence of unemployment among the ALHs is maximum (72.4% & 69%) in these states which is well above the national level of 56.1%. It may be argued that Haryana & Punjab cases are exceptions as farming in these states are heavily mechanized than the others. This argument is partly true because, in states like Bihar (with an underdeveloped agricultural practices) the incidence of unemployment among the ALHs is as high as 64%! Even in the land-reform-famed West Bengal where some modern methods of agricultural activities are claimed to be practiced these unemployment status among the ALHs are 64.1% (which is considerably greater than the national average)! Other states follow the general trend more or less with considerable exceptions in Andhra Pradesh. 5. In fact, in all the major states, except Andhra Pradesh, more than 50% of the agricultural labour households are non-occupied. Moreover, these non-occupied agricultural labour households have no other options open outside agricultural to get a job. Table 18 demonstrates (in the last row) that in national level only 6.4% (2.1%+4.3%) agricultural labour househlds get jobs outside agricultural activities. This is our real India! Labour households, mainly, are unable to transform themselves in proletariat!

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Earnings & Wages of Agricultural Labour Households

[The Rural Labour Enquiry of GoI published some data about the Wages & Earnings of Agricultural Labour Households for 1999-2000. But, discrepancies remain within this data also. Normally, the survey work has been done among the agricultural workers during the peak season of agricultural activities (i.e., during the months of June-July) when the rate of wages, earnings, and incidence of employment remain higher. Therefore, actual picture about these aspects is hardly available if the studies are based only on the data collected during the peak season of cultivation. But we have no other options but to depend on these incomplete databases.

Table 19 provides data for Average daily earnings of workers of Agricultural Labour Households in different agricultural operations during the year 1999-2000. The term Earnings is defined in the Box 4. Note that these earnings and/or wages include both Cashes & Kinds. But, there are still loopholes in the data provided by the Labour Enquiry demonstrated in Table 19. Firstly, the earnings/wages received in 1999-00 were much less in real terms (i.e., after proper adjustment of rate of inflation). Secondly, the earnings/wages given

Table 19: Average Daily Earnings of Workers of Agricultural Labour Households in Different Agricultural Operations, 1999-2000 (in Rs.)
Operation Ploughing Sowing Transplanting Weeding Harvesting Cultivation Forestry Plantation Animal Husbandry Fisheries Men 42.36 38.75 39.53 34.99 38.44 39.31 46.03 58.27 32.25 54.11 Women 33.21 28.30 28.59 25.41 29.30 27.72 33.41 43.99 22.68 34.33 Children 27.86 25.09 24.56 22.88 27.28 24.78 41.08 18.06 19.74 41.55

[Source: Rural Labour Enquiry Report on Wages Earnings of Rural Labour Households; http://labourbureau.nic.in]

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to the agricultural workers were well below the minimum wages fixed by the respective state governments. And, there are large variations in the rate of wage in different states. Moreover, these variations are wider among the male, female & child workers. Table 20 provides data for earnings/wages for different agricultural operations in different states. Table 21 provides data for earnings/wages in real terms, etc. Note the Findings IX for our comments.]

J. Findings IX:
1. It is found from the Rural Labour Enquiry that the minimum average daily wages/earnings by Agricultural Labour Households (ALHs) are Rs. 40.15 for men, Rs. 28.38 for women, and Rs. 24.23 for child workers. Therefore, the female workers, on an average, earn 70% and the child workers earn 60% of the wages earned by male workers. 2. Table 19 shows that there are huge differences of rate of daily wages for male, female, and child workers in different agricultural

Table 20: Average Daily Earnings by Agricultural Labour Households (State-wise) (in Rs.)
States Money Earnings 1993-94 Andhra Pradesh Assam Bihar Haryana Karnataka Maharashtra Orissa Punjab Uttar Pradesh West Bengal All India 18.99 26.19 16.95 30.54 19.01 19.41 16.30 41.98 21.43 23.64 21.34 1999-00 39.76 43.13 35.04 60.04 39.75 37.47 28.63 63.57 37.85 43.32 40.15 Real Earnings Range of (at 93-94 prices) Minimum Wages* 1999-00 24.54 na 22.75 na 23.95 22.44 17.14 na 24.42 27.59 25.25 25.96 62.85 33.10 63.80 38.60 55.54 71.21 72.21 26.00 76.33 8.46 108.10 40.00 40.00 67.25 69.80 47.00 79.19 40.49 96.17 46.22 77.12

*The range of the prevailing minimum wages (per day) fixed under The Minimum Wages Act, 1948 as on December, 1999.

[Source: Rural Labour Enquiry Report on Wages Earnings of Rural Labour Households; http://labourbureau.nic.in]

44

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occupations. In jobs like plantaBox 4 tion, child workers get a mere 31% Earnings: Earnings refer to wages of the male workers. the wage/salary income (and 3. Table 19 demostrates also not total earnings) receivable variation of wages given in different for the wage/salaried work types of agricultural operations. done during the reference week by the wage/salaried These variations illustrates different employees and casual demands of labour for different labourers. The wage/salary receivable may be in cash or types of agricultural jobs. 4. Table 20 shows variation of in kind or partly in cash and rate of daily wages across states. It partly in kind. The wages in kind are evaluated at the is found that in states like Haryana current retail price. [Source: & Punjab, where modern methods Rural Labour Enquiry] of agricultural practices are employed more than the other states, these rates are substantially higher. 5. Wages in Orissa (Rs 28.63) & Bihar (Rs 35.04) are miserably lower than the national average. 6. In many states (given in the Table 20) average wages received by the workers scarcely touch the lower limit of minimum wages fixed by the respective state governments. In states like Orissa & UP, the wages paid are considerably lower than the minimums. Even in states like Haryana & Punjab, workers get less than the minimum fixed by the respective state governments. Even in state like West Bengal where a Left front is ruling for thirty years, the average wages paid are significantly low with respect to the minimum range of wages fixed by the government! 7. In real terms, the wages received in 1999-2000, are incredibly small. In fact, during the six years period (93-94 to 99-00), the wages of the workers increased marginally (18%) in real terms. 8. An interesting fact is demonstrated in Table 12 (quoted in the last row) regarding the number of wage-earners of the ALHs. It is found that during 1999-2000, on an average, only 1.8 persons are wage-earners of a household size of 4.6. Therefore, as low as 39% of the agricultural labour households are wage-earners! Surprisingly, the same Table 12 shows that in 1963-65, 44% of the agricultural labour households earned wages. Is agricultural India pro-

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gressing?
[Anyone little informed about rural India knows well that the actual state of affairs in the livelihoods of the agricultural workers is more dismal. In reality, most of the figures stated above are mere paperwork in lives of the poor agricultural workers. Majority of the workers do not get jobs at least 100 days a year! Most of them remain in state of starvation or semi-starvation. In fact, the rate of average earnings/wages speak little about their livelihoods. More realistic picture in this regard may be available from their monthly per capita expenditure.]

Expenses and Consumption of Agricultural Labour Households

[It must be remembered in this case also that the survey among the agricultural labour households is being done during the peak seasons of the cultivation. Normally, the surveyors ask them how much you spend during the last 30 days period? In the peak period of cultivation these poor workers earn some pennies. And during the lean months of cultivation, they earn almost nothing. Hence, this type of survey cannot provide a true picture. Nonetheless, the pattern of expenditure & consumption may provide some realistic conditions of the agricultural labour households. Rural Labour Enquiry, 1999-2000 of GoI classify Monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) into several size-classes, e.g., less than Rs 225, Rs 225 to Rs 255, Rs 255 to Rs 300, Rs. 300 to Rs 340, and so on (twelve sub-classes in total). It is derived by the Labour Enquiry that the Median Class for Agricultural Labour Households (ALHs) is between Rs. 340 to Rs 380 and that of Rural Labour Households (RLHs) is between Rs. 380 to Rs. 420! Average MPCEs for Agricultural Labour Households (ALHs) & Rural Labour Households (RLHs) for selected states are given in Table 21. This Table demonstrates remarkable variations among the states. It is found that MPCEs of ALHs & RLHs in some states like Orissa, Bihar, Assam, & Madhya Pradesh are way behind the national average. On the contrary, MPCEs of ALHs of some states like Haryana & Punjab (famed as forward states) are well ahead of the national average. Note the Box 5 for explanation of the term MPCE.]

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K. Findings X:
1. From Table 21, it is found that the average monthly per capita expenditures of agricultural labour households (Rs. 390.45 & rural labour households (Rs. 479.62) in all-India basis are both higher than the median class of these two categories (Rs 340-380 & Rs 380-420). But, agricultural labour households (ALHs) in three states (Orissa, MP, & Assam) spend less than the MPCE. And more surprisingly, six major Table 21: Average monthly per capita states (specially expenditure for Agricultural Labour marked in Table 21) Households & Rural Labour spend less than naHouseholds (in Rs.) (99-00) tional average! MoreAgricultural Labour Rural Labour over, the ALHs of Households Households West Bengal, where AP 396.65 401.74 334.22 347.01 left parties are ruling Assam 340.07 339.44 for thirty years unin- Bihar Gujarat 448.15 452.96 terruptedly, spend less Haryana 552.07 552.25 than all-India average! Karnataka 417.31 425.36 2. Agricultural MP 338.19 342.18 396.90 425.41 Labour Households Maharashtra Orissa 311.34 316.36 (ALHs) are a part Punjab 544.87 564.83 (i.e., sub-set) of Rural UP 373.46 385.05 labour households West Bengal 388.38 397.28 390.45 479.62 (RLHs). Understand- All India ably, some of the [Source: Derived from Report on RLHs may get jobs Consumption Expenditure of Rural Labour outside agricultural ac- Households, Rural Labour Enquiry, 1999tivities. They earn 2000; http://labourbureau.nic.in] little more than the ALHs. They spend more than the ALHs too. But there are no remarkable variation among the MPCEs among RLHs & ALHs in the states selected. 3. In states like Haryana & Punjab, both the ALHs & RLHs spend considerably more either than the national average or than many major states. According to the Labour Enquiry, 8 states viz., Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa,

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Chattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, and Jharkhand [MPCE] was below the national level. These states accounted for 51.48% of total Agricultural Labour HouseBox 5: Monthly Per Capita holds in the country. SurExpenditure (MPCE) prisingly, the Labour EnThe total expenditure incurred by a quiry missed to mention West Bengal in this list. household over a period of 30 days [There are some variations divided by household size has been between NSSO figures and expressed as monthly per capita Update figures due to some expenditure (MPCE) of a household. The MPCE is a very important rounding up for which the indicator of living standard of a total/percentage may not household. In all there are twelve tally] classes of MPCE (lowest slab being 4. In earlier discussions it below Rs 225 and highest being above is found that the average Rs. 950) which are chosen in such a size of an ALH is 4.6. way that each class excepting the top Therefore, on an average, a and bottom two classes approximately single member of an ALH contained an estimated 10% of rural can spend not more than Rs population while the remaining four 85 per month! In other classes each contained an estimated 5% of the population. [Source: Rural words, each member of an Labour Enquiry] ALH can spend only Rs. 2.83 per day! Whats a food for thought for the World Bank experts! 5. According to World Bank standard, any person spending (and/or purchasing) less than $1 is very poor! In the prices of 1999-2000 (when this survey had been undertaken), $1 was roughly equivalent to Rs. 35. Therefore, according to World Bank standard, the members of an ALHs are not just very poor, they are, in fact, destitute.
[The destituteness of these agricultural labour households (ALHs) may be depicted more by consumption pattern of them. It is a well known fact that: more the expenditure incurred on food, more is the intensity of poverty. The rural agricultural poor (both the poor peasants & the poor workers) are compelled to eat/consume the foodgrains (even the seeds stored for the next season!) they sown and/or earned (in form of cash and kind) within

48 update 12 few months! Nonetheless, they toil to earn few pennies to buy their foods from the markets. Most of their earnings are spent on consumptions of food, particularly for cereals. It is found that in 1999-2000, 62.3% of expenditure of the agricultural labour households are incurred on foods. And of this expenditure on food, 43.40% is spent for staple foods, i.e., cereals; 13.63% is spent for vegetables & fruits; 8.39% for milk & milk products; 6.59% for pulses and pulses products (another important nutritional food item); 6.49% for oils & fats; 5.85% for meat & fish; 5.50% for condiments & spices; and 10.15% for other foods. Table 22 demonstrates some of these expenditures of agricultural labour households (ALHs) for selected states.]

L. Findings XI:
1. Labour Enquiry states that: preponderance of food-group items in the total consumption expenditure of the Agricultural Labour Households is all pervasive in all the states. Moreover, it is found from the Labour Enquiry that the expenditure on food items accounted for roughly 60% to 70% of the total consumption expenditure of Agricultural Labour Households in almost half of

Table 22: Percentage of Consumtion Expenditure on Food (cereals & non-cereals) by Agricultural Labour Households (1999-2000)
States Andhra Pradesh Assam Bihar Gujarat Haryana Karnataka Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra Orissa Punjab Uttar Pradesh West Bengal All India Foods 63.5 67.2 67.1 62.8 57.3 61.0 58.0 57.9 67.3 55.3 59.3 68.6 62.3 Cereals as % Foods 44.1 46.0 54.6 27.7 27.3 36.2 43.2 36.4 63.2 24.8 44.6 52.8 43.4 Non-cereals as % Foods 55.9 54.0 45.4 72.3 72.7 63.8 56.8 63.6 36.8 75.2 55.4 47.2 56.6

[Source: Same as Table 21]

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the states and between 55% to 60% in the remaining states. It is also stated that: In less developed states the food items account for a much higher proportion than the all-India average. Some of these states are Jammu & Kashmir, Assam, Bihar, Manipur, Tripura, Orissa, West Bengal, Gujarat, and Chattisgarh which have higher expenditure on food than the All-India average. 2. In fact, from the Table 22 it is found that the agricultural labour households (ALHs) are in dire state in left-ruled West Bengal as they are compelled to spend 68.6% of their meagre expenses on food items. Moreover, the ALHs of West Bengal spend 52.8% on cereals of their food-expenditure. Whats a tragedy awaiting for the left leaders of West Bengal that only Orissa (63.2%) & Bihar (54.6%), famed for wretched backwardness, are ahead of West Bengal! 3. It is also found from the Table 22 that there are large variations within the states in expenditure on food items. But these variations are sharper in expenditure on cereals. According to the figures, the ALHs of Punjab, Haryana, & Gujarat are less poor than the other states.
[Still, the figures given above cannot depict fully the destituteness of the agricultural labour households. Prices of cereals vary between state to state, even within different regions of a state. Thus, per capita per day availability of cereals (in grams) by the agricultural labour households may provide some picture. It is found that in 1993-94 & 1999-2000, average cereal intake (in gm) by agricultural labour households are 431 & 418 respectively. The respective figures for all households in India (i.e., rural & urban, both) are 434 gm & 426 gm. Thus agricultural labour households consume less than other households of India and this consumption level is decreasing. It is argued that poverty ratio can be measured better by the index of intake of calories instead of cereal consumption. Before the 55th round of survey by NSSO, intake of 2400 Kcal had been fixed as benchmark to measure poverty ratio. But, in the 55th round of survey conducted in 1999-2000, NSSO made a volta-face in declaring that instead of 2400 Kcal, 1868 Kcal would be the new benchmark. Through this statistical jugglery the poverty ratio

in India came down to 26% in 1999-00 from 36% in 1993-94 a 10% decline in just 5 years! Since then, lot of points & counterpoints were raised by many renowned economists/analysts though these sophisticated debates never reached the downtrodden people of the country. Nevertheless, some analysts did good jobs to disclose bitter truth of poverty. One of them writes: [I]n the rural areas of most of the major states, more than 80% of the population is not able to afford the food, which would fulfill their calorie requirements. The case of Andhra Pradesh is glaring. The official poverty line there is the lowest and consequently poverty ratio estimated by the Planning Commission is only 10%. However, as per our computation 89.4% of population in Andhra Pradesh is not able to afford 2400 Kcal per capita per diem. Similarly, in Gujarat, the official poverty line is low and the poverty ratio is 12.4%. The calorie norms, however, require the poverty line to be very much higher and the corresponding poverty ratio turns out to be 86%. In Tamil Nadu again the poverty line is very high and poverty ratio is 94%.... Our intention here is only to bring home the wide divergence between the two sets of figures and thus point at the absurdity of official estimates. (Magnifying mal-development, Alternative Economic Survey, 2004) But, the poor peasants and the workers engaged in cultivation are facing far more bitter truth of absurdities in their lives destituteness, starvation or semi-starvation etc. Any estimate of poverty ratio means nothing before their empty stomachs. Nevertheless, some facts are really hard to swallow. In this issue of Update, we have tried to depict some of the burning questions of the Indian agriculture. The poor peasants, landless peasants, poor & destitute agricultural workers and/or semi-proletarians are the pivot of Indian agriculture. They are the victims of multifarious exploitations feudal & semi-feudal, capitalist & imperialist, economic & extra-economic, and social, etc. We hope that this issue of Update may be useful to someone who are struggling sincerely to change this existing world.]

Chapter II Land Reforms and Imperialism

In 1947, under the charade of independence, the British imperialist rulers handed over power to the Indian ruling classes made of big capitalists and big landowners. The democratic aspirations of the freedom struggles waged by the masses had been betrayed. And this betrayal was perpetrated by the overt and covert understanding and collaboration among the big capitalists, big landlords, and the imperialist powers at that time. Under this treachery everything old had been preserved. Vast amount of feudal remnants remained. Remained the old methods of extraeconomic coercion by the feudal landlords. Everything rotten, putrid social exploitations & oppressions were maintained intact. Capitalism developed, but developed slowly, disturbing little of the old structure, relations, and customs. In fact, under the age of imperialism this has to be happened. And, it had been happened. In fact, the Indian ruling classes (composed of big capitalists & big landlords) have taken a slow, limping, tardy, zigzag, roundabout, bourgeois process of agrarian reform betraying and suppressing the revolutionary-democratic spirit of the masses. It is a well-known fact that in the era of imperialism, the world bourgeoisie have lost their revolutionary potential and role in leading democratic revolutions. In this era, the bourgeoisie in several independent and dependent countries have taken a path of reforms which may be called the Junker path as followed by the bourgeoisie in Germany in and after 1848 revolutions. In 1907, Lenin analysed the possibilities of two path of bourgeois development as below: Those two paths of objectively possible bourgeois development we would call the Prussian path and the American path, respectively. In the first case feudal landlord economy slowly evolves into bourgeois, Junker landlord economy, which condemns the peasants to decades of most harrowing expropriation and bondage, while at the same time a small minority of Grossbauren (big peasants) arises. In the second case there is no landlord economy, or else it is broken up by revolution, which confiscates and splits up the feudal estates. In that case the peasant predominates, becomes the sole agent of agriculture, and evolves

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into a capitalist farmer. In the first case the main content of the evolution is transformation of the feudal bondage into servitude and capitalist exploitation on the land of the feudal landlords Junkers. In the second case the main background is transformation of the patriarchal peasant into a bourgeois farmer. In the economic history of Russia both these types of evolution are clearly in evidence.... Needless to say, in second case of the development of capitalism and the growth of the productive forces would have been wider and more rapid than by peasant reform, carried away in the landlords way. (Agrarian Programme of Social Democracy in the First Russian Revolution 1905-1907, Collected Works, Lenin, Vol. 13, pp 239-40)

What have been analysed by Lenin hundred years ago is known as two paths of bourgeois democratic development. The first may be called the bourgeois-landlord path slowly transforming the old feudal and/or semi-feudal agrarian structure & economy along the course of bourgeois development. Another path may be either called revolutionary or the proletarian-peasant path. The first one is mostly favourable to the bourgeoisie because it is least dangerous to their rule. This path is reformist making the peasants largely dependent on the state initiative for agrarian reforms, trying to snatch their urge of revolutionary transformation, and discouraging (and/or suppressing, if needed) whole-heartedly any awakening of the masses. This path is favourable to the imperialism also. Any growth of revolutionary urge and/or unrest among the landless peasants (along with the working class) may be averted if this path is taken. Moreover be avoided the danger of slipping of these countries into the communist hands growing during the 1940s, particularly in Asia. If this path taken develops capitalism in the dependent countries to a certain extent it cannot harm the imperialist control and grip over the dependent countries since in this era of imperialism no capitalist country can survive (or develop) without the economic doses of finance capital and technology supplied by the imperialist countries. On the other hand, the revolutionary path if taken by the awakened working class and poor landless peasants, will not only overthrow the power of the big bourgeoisie (& of course, big landlords), but it also jeopardise the imperialist exploitation, control, and hegemony over the country. Thus in all sense, the first path, i.e., the Junker (or landlord-bourgeois) path is

update 12 53 beneficial both to the big capitalists and to their imperialist masters. Now listen to a little known personality, named Wolf Ladejinsky, (a Ukrainian exile in the USA after the October Revolutions in Soviet Russia), renowned for his historic role in framing the land reforms programmes of the US imperialism in Asia and other backward countries:
In agrarian Asia, land reform is no more an academic issue; and the experience of Japan and Taiwan on the one hand and that of Communist China on the other may well serve to identify the best interests of other Asian and non-Asian, non-Communist countries. The first two have shown that the tiller can get the land he cultivates with no recourse to bloodshed and chaos. Above all, they have demonstrated that a peasant can achieve his goal as a free and independent producer. He has escaped the serfdom which Communist Russia and China have imposed upon their peasants at the point of a bayonet. It must be underscored, however, that the achievement rests on the will and resolution of a government in power to meet the land hunger of the landless, on the appreciation of the political consequences of a land tenure system where poverty and social degradation are its hallmark, on the ability to force upon the landlord class the concessions which make reform possible. The last point is crucial. In the part of the world I come from, landlords, big or small, are not social reformers. To them, the very words reform, change, and concession partake of the devil. In their blind insistence on the status quo, in Russia and in China they were the creators of a revolutionary situation and the unwitting and unwilling allies of Communism. In the end, they dug their own graves and those of their own governments. For these reasons and in the context of the revolutionary ferment sweeping the world these many years, the concessions imposed by a government upon the landlords are essentially an affirmation of a positive goal of a free people. Failing these affirmations, the alternatives are the agrarian revolutions of Communist Russia and Communist China. There is ample proof that sooner or later the dispossessed will take the law into their own hands, to the utter destruction of the governments and classes who failed to grant them

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peacefully what they otherwise try to acquire through violence. The rise of Communist Russia and China has demonstrated that in the predominantly agrarian countries a government must have peasant support; failing that it truly has no support at all. It has demonstrated that the foundations of the social structure stand or fall in the countryside and that the peasant and his interests and aspirations must be placed in the center of the piece. Japan and Taiwan are examples of why and how the peasant was placed there and how he and the country benefited from the act. Communist China is a lesson and a warning of the shape of things to come when the economic and social aspirations of the peasant are sacrificed for the sake of an outdated status quo.

Thus a US expert clarified Two Paths of Land Reforms from the imperialist point of view to be adopted in the countries simmering with peasant discontents. The prescribed path is: reforms from top with no recourse to bloodshed and chaos; reforms by the existing governments to save the foundations of social structure inherited from the past; reforms of the landlords lest the land hunger among the landless dont go along path of alternatives of agrarian revolutions of Communist Russia and Communist China. In this perspective, the agrarian reforms taken by the Indian ruling classes will be understood. The ruling classes have taken the most peaceful path of agrarian reform (and land reforms) from the top by the bureaucratic state apparatus under the direct patronage of imperialism, particularly the US imperialism. In fact, this path of agrarian reforms (land reforms and bourgeoise type of reforms etc.) has been exercised and dictated by the US imperialism after the World War II in Japan, Taiwan, (and South Korea) to save these countries from slipping into the hands of Communism then surging ahead throughout Asia. Soon after the surrender of Japan in 1945, the MacArthy led occupation forces dictated Japan authorities to take the agrarian reform aggressively. In these years, a little known figure to Indian people, Wolf Ladejinsky, a bitter anti-communist expert helped MacArthy to formulate the whole programmes of agrarian reform first in Japan, and next in Taiwan (after the peoples democratic revolution in China). Louise J. Walinsky, who collected and edited the Ladejinsky Papers, applauded him highly in the following fashion: From the end of 1945 when he was posted to Japan to assist

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General Douglas MacArthur in planning the postwar land reform there, Wolf Ladejinsky spent the last thirty years of his life almost entirely in Asia. These three decades were devoted to the cause of agrarian reform.... Ladejinsky thus committed himself entirely to the survival and flourishing of democracy in the newly independent countries of Asia. Such an outcome, he was convinced, depended on satisfying the basic needs and yearnings of impoverished rural Asians for a bit of land they could call their own, or at least for security of tenure and a tolerable rent on the land they cultivated for absentee and exploitative landowners. Only in this way could they escape from the grinding poverty and personal indignity they were increasingly unwilling passively to accept. Aware of how powerfully Lenins promise of land to the tiller had influenced the Russian peasantry to accept and support the revolution, all too soon to be dispossessed again in favor of collective and state farms, Ladejinsky developed a profound sense of the political role of the land. He recognized the importance of ownership, tenurial rights, and the distribution of the lands rewards in determining whether democracy would indeed survive in Asia or whether its rural masses would succumb to the Communists promise. Ladejinskys major contribution to the highly successful land reform in Japan (1946-48) brought him almost instant renown and led to requests for his advice and assistance in many other lands. He made a significant contribution to the equally successful land reform in Taiwan in the early postwar years.... From 1950 through 1954, in addition to his normal duties as agricultural attach in Tokyo, he reviewed the effects of the Japanese land reform, assisted again in Formosa [i.e., in Taiwan], and, at the urgent request of the ambassador to India, Chester Bowles, examined at first hand tenurial conditions and problems in Kashmir, Punjab, and Madras (in 1952) and the general status of the land reform program in India (1954). His final year in U.S. government service was spent as land reform advisor with the aid mission in Saigon. From 1956 to 1961 he continued his work in Vietnam as personal advisor to President Diem. For the next three years he served the Ford Foundation as a kind of roving regional consultant, advising on the foundations work in Nepal, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines. In the latter part of 1964 he began his consulting work for the

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World Bank. After participating in a major World Bank study of Indias prospects for economic development and in other missions to Mexico and Iran, Ladejinsky was posted to India early in 1967 as a member of the Banks resident mission in New Delhi.... While India was his primary responsibility and concern during this last period, he was also called upon to assist ad hoc with the Banks work in Iran, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka.... Particularly in a number of the India papers over the last decade of his life, Ladejinsky repeatedly reviewed the evolving problems (and programs) of the small submarginal farmer, of land reform, of the Green Revolution, of such institutional constraints as cooperative credit, extension, and administration, and so on. (The Selected Papers of Wolf Ladejinsky, Agrarian Reform as Unfinished Business, Louise J. Walinsky, editor; published for the World Bank, 1977; http://worldbank.org)

Being an instrumental figure for the US strategy in Asia, Ladejinsky performed his duty as a reformer of agrarian structures. He had an exclusive role in the Land Reforms programmes of the Indian ruling classes first as an advisor, then directly from the auspices of the Ford Foundation and World Bank. In fact, he visited India in the 1950s several times and from the early 1960s to 1975 he stayed in India instructing (read: directing) central and state governments of India in multifarious activities connected with agriculture, particularly in Land Reforms programmes. In the later years, as an consultant of India Operations of World Bank, Ladejinsky made significant role in shaping the role of World Bank in Land Reforms programmes in general. In fact, the US imperialism had an worldwide scheme of peaceful process of agrarian reforms. In the late fifties and sixties of the last century it had helped the ruling classes of Latin American countries to take the route of peaceful transition of agrarian reforms not disturbing its tightened grip over these countries. Though in number of cases the agrarian reforms taken produced minimum reforms, still these programmes of agrarian reforms delivered immense political dividends to the US imperialism. In content, these process of agrarian reforms was more political than economic. The history of number of Asian and Latin American countries amply testified this fact.

update 12 57 Wolf Ladejinsky, in his later days in India, made several comments about the programmes of land reforms in India suggesting some changes. Appreciating few peculiarities in Indian agrarian problems & structures he strongly recommended some measures called minimum programme. In this programme he advocated recording of tenancies, security of tenures rather than redistribution of land. Interestingly, these prescriptions of Wolf Ladejinsky was implemented later by the Left Front Government in West Bengal. Not only the programmes of an imperialist expert had been implemented, but also the LF government claimed this fit of land reform quoting Ladejinsky Papers in the Economic Survey 2004 of WB government (p 37). In effect, the LF government has implemented the programmes of the capitalist-landlord classes of India under direct guidance of imperialism. In the programmes of agrarian reforms (i.e., the path taken in bourgeois-landlord way) different organisations of imperialist fame, such as World Bank, Ford Foundation, Rockfeller Foundation, etc. took crucial role. They made few changes in their strategies consisting of several measures in directing the land reforms of the dependent countries. Particularly, during the Cold War period, these imperialist agencies advocated programmes of developing land market in name of land reforms. Until 1990s, scores of dependent countries are dictated to develop land markets under the guise of land reforms. From Philippines to Brazil, Indonesia to South Africa...., these prescription of developing land markers are rigorously followed, of course, with some serious side-effects. In most of the cases the victims were landless peasants and poor peasants operating and/or owning a small piece of land. The devastating results of these programmes in the countryside of many countries sparked protests, sometimes revolts among the landless & poor peasants. On the face of these ongoing protests now comes few voluntary agencies to salvage the poor and landless peasants. (Alas! Where have all the revolutionaries/ communists gone!) From the late nineties of the last century these voluntary organisations or the NGOs occupy the stage of protests against the imperialist land reforms programmes of the World Bank, FAO, etc. in many countries. The simmering discontent of the poor & landless peasants have been hijacked. Novel programmes/proposals have been articulated and/or advocated on

58 update 12 behalf of these NGOs. Concepts of developing land markets is not discarded but is being modified to make the old programmes of the imperialism less painful. Concepts and programmes of Self Help Groups have been promoted. Promoted the institutions of micro-credit as panacea legitimising the poverty, miseries, exploitations meted on the landless & poor peasantry. Thus, the old structures, old landlords, old systems, old order have been preserved in toto serving the interests of the imperialism and existing ruling classes of those countries. In this pervasive atmosphere of reforms (and reformism) created and nurtured by capitalist classes (with overt & covert understandings with the old semi-feudal classes) under the direct patronage of the imperialist powers the demands of LAND TO THE TILLERS have been vanished almost. The details of the above programmes of Land Reforms of the imperialist powers/agencies cannot be done in this short space of Update. We are presenting here some of the excerpts of Wolf Ladejinsky & others. In the coming issues of Update we may discuss the roles palyed by World Bank, FAO, and the NGOs. The first one is an excerpt of an article written by Wolf Ladejinsky (published in July 1950) when he returned from Taiwan to Japan after accomplishing some of the missions of Land Reforms.

Too late to save Asia?

The Chinese peasant seemed out of his mind. He kept jumping up and down, making strange gestures with his fingers and palms, working them in a semicircular fashion around his mouth. My interpreter chatted with him briefly, then explained the situation to me. It was the paper the peasant held in his hand that caused his hysteria. That paper was the deed to the single acre of land which he had worked as a tenant for the past thirty-two years. Now that precious acre of land belonged to him! This scene, which I witnessed not long ago in the courtyard of the land office of the small village of Kwangsi, deep in the heart of China, epitomizes the problem and promise of all Asia. It sums up the present and perhaps the future of a continent where agrarian discontent is gnawing at the vitals of the social order. It is on this

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strife the Communists have been able to capitalize so successfully by posing as advocates of reforms designed to benefit the peasantry. () The heart of the problem of Asia today lies in the countryside. It is on the farm where solutions must be sought and found. In the Chengtu Plain of Szechwan, the richest granary of China where I traveled last fall, the farmers who had just harvested excellent crops seemed concerned with just one idea how to secure enough rice for themselves and their families, how to fill the empty rice bowls and add to the half-empty ones. The discontent I sensed in Szechwan is typical of the many regions I visited in recent years in other parts of the Far East, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. An overworked and overexploited peasantry that for centuries was inertly miserable is now alertly miserable. The reasons for the age-old wretchedness of the Asiatic peasant can be summarized in a brief sentence: too many people, too little land. Pitifully small holdings, inadequate tools, and institutional arrangements over which the peasant has no control intensify his plight. A large part of the misery and hunger arises from the relationship between the peasants and the landowners, a relationship which the courts and local officials have given official sanction through the centuries. The peasants have been obliged to pay exorbitant rentals, for they have no bargaining power. Nor is their contract of tenancy worth the paper it is written on; it may be altered or abrogated at any time at the whim of the landlord. The peasants of Asia have never been satisfied with this state of affairs. They have often raised horny hands against persons and governments which they believed were the causes of their distress. But in the main, until very recently the conservatism and inertia of the farmer and his ingrained, feudal subservience to the state and to his landlord kept the pot from boiling over. Now the forces that keep the peasant within well-defined bounds are breaking down under rising agrarian discontent. The peasantry is at last in motion. The Communists have exploited this fact and placed it in the center of Asiatic politics. It is only one side that has known how to exploit this overwhelming question and to place it in the center of Asiatic politics where it belongs.

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The catastrophe of China is a case in point. Many are the reasons that explain the victory of the Communists and why in 1949 Nationalist China could not boast of a single Leonidas holding a single Thermopylae. But one cause seems to me beyond dispute: Nationalist China was pressed and pushed over not so much by force of arms as by the Russian Communist tactic of giving land to the poverty-stricken, landless, hopeless peasantry. Is there any wonder that peasants living on the ragged edge of penury are easy marks for Communists who are masters in the art of exploiting agrarian discontent for their own political ends? The peasants know nothing and care less about Marxism, Leninism, and Stalinism, and they are surely not eager for collectivization. (...) Every revolution invokes the name of Liberty, but the concept of liberty is always shaped by the existing economic and social needs. For the Russian peasants liberty meant the ownership of the lords land. The Communist promise in 1917, which ultimately was broken, that the land would belong to them fell on the eager ears of peasant soldiers who promptly left the front lines, rifle in hand, and went home to divide it. As Lenin put it, taunting his opponents, the peasants voted with their feet for distribution of the soil. Thus, Lenin and his party succeeded in cornering what Karl Marx called the peasant chorus without which the (proletarian) battle cry will degenerate into just another swan song. The Communists would never have obtained power in Russia had they not successfully exploited the peasants longing for the landlords acres. Toward the end of his life Lenin despaired of a Communist victory in Western Europe. He visualized the final crucial battle as a conflict between a Communist East and a capitalistic West. In this struggle China and India were to join Russia as the forces of Communism. To win Chinese and Indian support, Stalin developed a program for those countries consisting of three stages: a struggle against foreign imperialism, an agrarian revolution under the leadership of the Communist Party, and finally a proletarian dictatorship. The key step was to be the wooing of the peasants. It is in connection with this step that the Chinese Communists have assumed a role which has led many observers mistakenly to

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assume that they are mere agrarian reformers. Actually they played this role because, according to Communist theory, the road to political power and dictatorship in China lay through the sponsorship of agrarian reform land for the landless. To satisfy the innermost needs of the peasantry was only a means to a large end which has little to do with the welfare of the peasants. Stalins three-page program of revolution as exemplified by China, is now being exported to Indo-China, to Burma, the Philippines, and Indonesia, and even into little-known Hyderabad. The revolt last year in Hyderabad was a peasant uprising, about the largest, and for a brief moment perhaps the most effective in Asia outside of China, and it was under Communist leadership. The uprising was finally crushed and the Communists jailed, yet it is worth noting that as in China the peasants of Hyderabad were not enticed by Communist dogma but merely followed the welcomed Communist bait of land and liberty in Asia. There are fertile fields for the Communist strategy in other parts of India and Pakistan. (...) Many people wouldnt hesitate to approve of a revolutionary movement if it is the only way the common man can secure his elementary wants. But we must realize how serious a threat an agrarian revolution could be at this point of history, even if the upheaval seems justifiable from that point of view. The only way to thwart Communist designs on Asia is to preclude such revolutionary outbursts through timely reforms, peacefully, before the peasants take the law into their own hands and set the countryside ablaze. But reforms, if they are to have a lasting effect, must come not only from opposition to Communism but from an honest purpose and plan to raise the status of the peasantry. (...) Douglas MacArthur in Japan, Nehru in India, and, more recently, General Chen Cheng of Formosa have understood the urgency of taking the wind out of the Communist sails in a peasant ocean. MacArthur knew how to do it and did it. A successful land reform under his direction has created in Japan a new, large class of private owner cultivators and has rendered rural Japan practically impervious to Communism. Nehru is trying hard to

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do it. Indias needs for technical farm improvements are overwhelming, and Nehru is well aware of it. But he is just as conscious of the urgency for a concurrent land reform program which will give the Indian peasant an incentive to improvement and a sense of responsibility. Nehrus motivation is economic, social, as well as political: If we dont do it, they will. And they are the Communists. Suggested farm reform can become a powerful political instrument. The native governments friendly to us would be more likely to win popular support, and popular support in Asia is peasant support or nothing. An owner cultivator or a reasonably satisfied tenant would acquire a stake in society. He would guard that society against extremism. Private property would be strengthened where it has been weakest at the huge base of the social pyramid. The common man of Asia would become a staunch opponent of Communist economics and politics not necessarily to favor the interests of the United States but simply because his own interests lay in the same direction. Secretary Acheson summed up the causes of Asias tensions in the San Francisco address on U.S. policy toward Asia. They (the Asian people), he said, have been striving for independence, better education, more widespread ownership of land, and control over their own destiny. He continued, It is no accident that their goals and our goals are the same. But while we are busy enriching the economic, political, and social institutions the American people have already achieved, Asia is yet to create the beginnings from which a democratic society may evolve. Such conditions cannot be handed to Asia as a gift; they must grow out of Asias wishes, opinions, and activities. Nor is this easy. For Asia, unlike Western and perhaps also Central Europe, lacks almost entirely the traditions, institutions, habits of thought, and experiences which are essential to democracy. That indeed is the principal political and psychological reason why Communism is a much greater threat in Asia than in Europe. (...)

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The need for U.S. material and technical assistance in Far Eastern programs of agricultural improvement is accepted as an integral part of our policy in Asia. (...) Whatever we may contribute to Asias advancement and stability be it in the form of dollars, of technical guidance, of organizational advice, or of military assistance our policy and all our diplomatic competence and tact should be actively and sympathetically guided by the knowledge that the foundations of the social structure stand or fall in the countryside and that the peasant and his interests and aspirations must be in the center of the piece. We must make an effort to persuade the more conservative Asian groups that rural reform is essential to their own preservation as well as in the interest of the peasantry. Provided such basic attitudes are developed, here and in Asia, the United States could begin to supply the mechanisms of reconstruction and effectively employ them. (...) They [the landlords] suffer from myopia, a disease likely to be fatal. The landlords of Szechwan refused to support a mild reform program even though the Communist armies had already penetrated the gates. In the rest of Asia, too, landlords also may be their own gravediggers and of their own governments. In country after country one sees feudal classes bent on maintaining the status quo unsullied. They cannot gain popular support. They neither benefit the rural community nor have they proved at all effective against Communist penetration. They are the unwitting and unwilling allies of Communism, for they are the creators of the revolutionary situation. It is these and such forces that today hold great and decisive power in Asia. Without their consent and support no progressive organization can function. One of the basic tasks of the United States foreign representatives abroad should be to convince these groups and their governments to follow the example of Tzar Alexander II, who saw in time that his only chance of keeping the throne was to initiate reform. He warned the Russian landowners a hundred years ago that it was better to begin the abolition of serfdom from above than to wait for it to begin itself from below. He abolished it from

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above, and the Romanov dynasty retained the throne for another half a century until Alexanders less wise grandson lost it. (...) Land and liberty has ever been the ideal of all peasants. It is the American ideal. We must lend all means at our disposal to bring it closer to realization. If the struggle against Communism is to succeed, it must be inspired by an ideal, a broad and bright vision of the future, that will find an instant response among the disinherited of the largest of the continents. ()
(Source: The Selected Papers of Wolf Ladejinsky, Agrarian Reform as Unfinished Business, Louise J. Walinsky, editor; published for the World Bank, 1977; http://worldbank.org)

What had we done in Japan

(...) To Asians, where four out of every five till the good earth, farming is synonymous with crushing poverty, a bad case of landlordism, heavy taxation, usury, and debt without end. (...) This poverty on the land has been intensified in many areas by political unrest and war. The Communists, with a quick eye for the main chance, have been making the most of peasant discontent by holding out that most enticing of baits ownership of the land. The Communists succeeded in China. They have failed utterly in Japan. There, General MacArthur stole the Communists thunder and made the landless peasants dream of a piece of land he could call his own come true. In Japan we have forged an economic and political weapon more potent in Asia than the strongest battalions and blandishments the Communists can put forth. (...) In pre-occupation Japan, only 30 percent of the farmers owned the land they cultivated; the other 70 percent either owned no land or were part tenants and part owners. (...) The tenant paid 50 percent of the crop as rental; he provided, in addition, his own expensive chemical fertilizer, farmhouse, farm buildings, implements and seed, and numerous assessments other than the land tax. A tenant was lucky to keep 30 percent of the crop for himself. Eviction was a common practice. (...) This plight of the majority of the Japanese farmers was not lost

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on General MacArthur. He remembered the failure of the Philippine government in 1945 to act upon his advice to fight farm unrest among the Filipinos through more widespread ownership of land. He understood that any real chance of cutting the political ground from under the feet of the Communists, of bringing even a semblance of democracy to Japan, depended on the improvement of the lot of those who worked the land. He knew that there was no point preaching democracy to empty stomachs. On December 15, 1945, General MacArthur issued the historic directive, ordering the Japanese government to take measures to insure that those who till the soil of Japan shall have a more equal opportunity to enjoy the fruits of their labor. In compliance with this directive, the Japanese government drafted a land reform program, formally enacted into law in October 1946. The reform provided for the purchase by the government from the landlords of 5 million acres for resale to the tenants who had priority proof purchase. Absentee landlords were required to sell all their land; noncultivating resident landlords could retain 2.5 acres, and owner operators could retain 7.5 acres-or 30 acres in Japans northernmost island where land is more plentiful. In cases where subdivision would lower the productivity of the land, the owner operators could cultivate a larger acreage. The price of land was fixed by the Japanese government at peracre rates of 3,000 yen for rice land and 1,860 yen for dry land, when the rate was fifty yen to $1.00. The government, in addition, paid a subsidy to the landlord. Tenants who cultivated the land acquired by the government had priority of purchase and could pay for the land at once or in thirty annual installments. There was no attempt to abolish tenancy completely; this was thought neither feasible nor desirable. Only the abuses were to be corrected. Cash rent ceilings of 25 percent of the value of the crop were established; a written contract was introduced which specified the rights and obligations of landlord and tenant. (...) There was serious opposition to the program to be overcome. Some landlords attempted to impede the program by illegal eviction of tenants, lawsuits against the Japanese government alleging that the reform law was unconstitutional, and through propaganda to

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dissuade the tenants from buying land. The courts ruled the law constitutional, and in most cases tenants refused to be moved from the land. Lingering doubts as to the intention of the government to press the program were dissipated as the first purchases and sales of land became known. The fact that the occupation backed the program had much to do with the overcoming of the opposition. But even General MacArthur with his authority and the confidence of the people could not have altered a traditional land structure if conditions had not been ripe. They were indeed. Land reform was not an occupation whim but a well-judged response to the needs of the great majority. Three years after the inauguration of the land purchase program, the task was accomplished. A Japanese farmer once told me that A farmer without his land is like a man without a soul. There are now many more farmers main Japan with souls; more than three million, in fact, the number of households which at last have acquired a stake in their communities by purchasing 5.5 million acres of land. The acreage operated by the tenants has declined from 46 to 11 percent. The owner operator is now Japans typical farmer. This all came about without a single loss of life, the shedding of a drop of blood, or a yens worth of damage to property. (...) No reform can add to the very limited arable acreage of Japan. Even under a system of equal distribution of arable land, a farm family would own only 2.3 acres. This is almost 2 acres short of what is needed to give the Japanese farmer a reasonable assurance of a decent standard of living. The occupation farm policies were designed, therefore, not to seek unattainable final solutions but to alleviate burdensome economic conditions and to forestall the Communist peril that feeds on them. This much has been achieved. (...) The occupation, by meeting the farm issue squarely, has destroyed one of the fertile sources of Communism in Japan and has given the country a good measure of political stability. In the view of one like myself who saw the Communists rise to power in Russia, failure to ease the farmers lot would have turned the Japanese countryside into a hotbed of unrest and possibly deliv-

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ered it to the Communists. The occupations farm aid strengthened and multiplied the independent landowning peasants, the group that makes for a middle-of-the-road, stable rural society, lending no ear to political extremists. For this reason, we and not the Communists have made political capital from the rural diplomacy we conducted here. (...) The Communists of Japan tried hard to exploit the agrarian difficulties of the country. They regarded the village as their very special oyster, and they cherished the ambition to use it as a base from which they would infiltrate the entire Japanese economy. Japanese Communists frankly admit now their lack of popular support in rural areas. This was eloquently proved by the September 1949 election of prefectural farm commissions when only two Communists were elected out of a total of 456 members. Today the Communists role as a political party in the village has almost vanished. What has taken place in Japan is food for thought in meeting the farm problems in the rest of Asia, in the Philippines, and in the Middle East. It is a commonplace that no government in Asia can hope to survive without peasant support. No armed force can keep the pot from boiling over if the needs of the farmers are not met. (...)
[Source: ibid; written in June 1951] [Ladejinsky observed in Japan, a farmer without his land is like a man without a soul. In his later years, he observed in India land hunger among landless peasants. Being a learned advocate of imperialist-backed land reforms he judged the true hunger of the landless peasants even in post-war Japan an advanced country in all respects than present-day India! After the mission accomplished in Japan and Taiwan, the US administration sent Ladejinsky to Vietnam in 1955 to assist in an urgently needed land reform effort. In Vietnam, Ladejinsky was appointed as the advisor of the notorious ruler Diem where he tried to make a grand programme of agrarian reforms to halt the march of communism at least at the gate of the South Vietnam occupied by the US forces. In Vietnam, Ladejinsky spent seven years (1955-61) and wrote several articles. The excerpts cited below are taken from some of these articles written between 195556. Update]

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Missions in Vietnam
(...) Land reform and farm conditions are political issues. The Russian and Chinese Communists have succeeded in projecting the land problem into the very center of Asian politics. The Communists have been able to capitalize on the landlord-tenant strife with startling success by posing as advocates of reforms for the benefit of the peasantry. The Viet Minh followed in the footsteps of their masters, successfully preaching the same gospel. The accounts of officials and landlords may have exaggerated the Viet Minhs hold on the people, perhaps, in part, to underscore the magnitude of the task facing the new administrators. However, even when this factor is taken into consideration, the persistence of ideas implanted by the Viet Minh cannot be denied. It has been suggested that non-economic ideas were largely responsible for the Viet Minhs strength in the community. Their method of selling their wares was one of a tremendous and unceasing political activity which kept the countryside seething with excitement; even anti-Viet Minh officials and landlords expressed grudging admiration for the Communists organizational ability and their political acumen in exploiting to the fullest advantage every exploitable issue. As one official remarked: They made greatest political capital of the land issue, but it was not only the land. Everything the Viet Minh touched was political: the creation of educational facilities, repair of roads, tax collections, army behavior, or capital punishment meted out to a criminal farmer all of these and much else were carefully explained on the ground of political necessity. The Viet Minh were, in effect, engaged in a continuous process of trying to convince the common people that their interests were identical with those of the Viet Minh and vice versa. Significant also is the evidence that the Communists were able to mobilize local talent to carry out their multifarious activities. If the above observations gathered in the field are correct, there is cause for concern on the part of the national government regarding the current state of political activity in the countryside, or rather the lack of it. A brief visit in central Vietnam convinces one of the existence of a political vacuum as wide as the countryside we tra-

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versed. Worried officials recognize the fact that no new content is being poured into the vacuum created by the physical disappearance of the Viet Minh. (...) Mere slogans and propaganda directed against the Viet Minh are not enough to save the day in the coming battle for Vietnam. (...) There are other means of making political capital. The land reform of the national government is one of those other means as well as the first attempt to translate one of the aspirations of the farmers into political language. For reasons discussed elsewhere, this land reform phase may fall short of the anticipated results. Hence the pressing need to raise the status of the farmers by attempting to satisfy some of the human wants about which they feel so keenly. (...) In a politically conscious Vietnam engaged in a bitter struggle with the Viet Minh, it would be doubly dangerous to delay indefinitely the partial realization at the very least of some of the expectations. The price of inaction might eventually be Communist action. (...)
[Ladejinsky wrote more about the urgency of land reforms and sent an urgent missive to the US President urging him for immediate release of US aid to accomplish land reforms programme in Vietnam. Update]

(...) According to the current thinking, the government will buy the land from the landlords at a fixed price, give them an initial cash payment equivalent to 10 to 15 percent of the price of the land, and make the remainder payable in bonds. The tenants in turn will pay for the land in a number of annual installments. The immediate problem is to find $30 million to make good the initial cash payment to the landlords. The government hopes that the United States would provide the sum as a grant or loan, preferably the former. The reform is aimed at the southern part of Vietnam where holdings are large and the tenants are legion. Central Vietnam is a different case altogether and will not be dealt with for the time being. Having had something to do with the matter in my past and present capacities, my own comment may not be out of order. First

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of all, I share my chiefs view that the land must be given to the landless without delay and for well-known reasons. Procrastination will not do any longer not if we are interested in the survival of Vietnam on the side of the free world. This may sound alarmist, but in the southern part of Vietnam, which is the agricultural heart of the country, the landless who cultivate 75 percent of the land are not in a happy frame of mind. The landlords feel no better, and the upshot is that government tax collections are at a vanishing point. On the political side, the repercussions may be worse and the government is cognizant of that. Second, while $30 million is a lot of money, it is a modest sum when viewed in the context of the purpose to which it will be put and the anticipated effects. I am told that it costs hundreds of millions of dollars to maintain one U.S. division in the field. As against this, $30 million will enable the government of Vietnam to secure the support of the overwhelming majority of the people; in time of need they may be expected to make up many a loyal armed division. Two other considerations enter into the picture: the rapid pace of economic development in North Vietnam, assisted by the Russians, Chinese, East Germans, Czechs, and Poles, and the wave of neutralism which is engulfing all of the mainland of Southeast Asia. In these circumstances, South Vietnam is the only uncompromisingly anti-Communist, anti-neutralist state in Southeast Asia. It is an outpost we cannot afford not to strengthen in every way. The scheme under consideration is perhaps the most important step in that direction. It appears to me, therefore, that the $30 million is not an excessive contribution towards the realization of a must program about to be undertaken by the government, in the face of known landlord opposition. (...) It will be a case of waging a war that must be won. (...) The anticipated aid from the United States is to speed up and smooth the process of an orderly reform from the top. The stakes in this undertaking are greater than the risks; the former are nothing less than meeting the Communist challenge at a time when all opposition to Communism is softening, of broadening the base of political power, and of creating some sort of economic order where

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little is to be found now. (...) Hence the plea to be bold, to use President Eisenhowers special aid fund if possible, and, by the same token, to give added meaning to U.S. foreign aid. (...) If I judge the Vietnamese temper correctly, an American refusal might have certain undesirable effects. I dont wish to imply, however, that U.S.-Vietnamese relations will be affected to any serious degree by our failure to assist the country to resolve this crucial issue. Vietnam is not going to trade on both sides of the street in the manner of other recipients of U.S. aid. Because of that, in any consideration of the problem discussed here it is well to keep in mind that, on the mainland of Southeast Asia, Vietnam is just about the only country which acts like a true ally. (...)
[Source: ibid] [Unfortunately to Ladejinsky, this outpost in the southeast Asia had been lost by the US imperialists in face of heroic resistance of the landless peasants and masses. Nevertheless, the political issue like land reforms had not been lost by the imperialists. In fact, in other countries of Asia, Americas, Africa, etc. the prescriptions of land reforms from top were followed in different forms and scale under the diktat of the imperialists keeping in mind the particularities and peculiarities of the agrarian problems of those countries. Moreover, to Ladejinsky and other mentors of imperialists, the question of land and/or the land reforms were primarily and strictly a political question to douse the flames of revolutionary upheavals among the landless peasants. They were critical to the feudal landlords in the sense that they are the creators of the revolutionary situation. And the fact that it is these and such forces that today hold great and decisive power in Asia must be recognised by the US imperialists. In this context, an alliance with these feudal lords should have been forged to make them understood that either take the path of reforms as Tzar Alexander II done in Russia or perish at the hands of the communists. This model prescribed by Ladejinsky was in fact, followed in many countries even in India. Before he was sent to Vietnam for the special mission, Ladejinsky came to India in 1952 at the insistence of Chester

72 update 12 Bowles, the US ambassador in India to formulate a model for land reforms in Indian perspective. Next excerpt is written by Chester Bowles in 1954 expressing his urgency of land reforms in Asia and India. Update]

Land reforms by force, or by law?

(...) There is another pressing reason for land reform. In the coldest terms of stopping Communism, as a strategy in the Cold War, the democratic world simply must carry out these reforms before the Communists can use the lack of them as as excuse to overthrow democracy. At present the high rents demanded by landowners and pitiful wages paid to the landless labourers represent a ready-made target for Communist agitators from the Philippines to Egypt, as well as throughout most of Africa and South America. (...) Whenever land inequalities are great as tenancy is Communists find a fertile field. (...) I have seen the same close correlation between land ownership and the success of the local Communist parties in country after country, all the way to Japan. (...) In Thailand the land system is more less unfair than in most parts of India with a majority of the peasants either owning their own land or renting for an average of around 25% of the crop. Even here the Communist gains have recently encouraged the rightwing government of Pibul Songgram to put a limit of 20 acres of the ownership of all land used for agriculture. (...) In Vietnam, in what used to be French Indo-China, we find a less unhappy situation. (...) [This] was one of the principal causes for the bitterness against the French colonial occupation which has enabled the Communists, under Ho Chi-Minh, so secure mass support for the long-drawn armed struggle. (...) In the Philippines the failure of the past governments to face up courageously to the land problem permitted the Communists led Huks to grow such roots in many rural areas. (...) In British-controlled Malaya, the Communists, who have been fighting as guerrillas for seven years, find the same fertile soil.

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Here, too, the land belongs to large owners who extract exorbitant rentals from the peasants. (...) On Formosa [now Taiwan Update] Chiang Kai-shek was faced some of the same political and economic issues on which he was beaten in China, including land ownership. In the last two and three years, his Nationalistic government has put through a land reforms programme which could well serve as a model for every free nation in Asia. (...) In Japan the correlation between land ownership and Communist success again holds true, and in a happy way. Under General Douglas MacArthur the most extensive land reform in Asia has taken place, and Communist strength among the villages is correspondingly slight. (...) With the advice of our agricultural expert, Wolf Ladejinsky, a law was enacted which redistributed all land of absentee owners and all land above seven acres. About a third of the total farm acerage changed hands. (...) Any examination of the land question in every Asian country demonstrates the danger of any further delay in carrying out thorough reforms. (...) In India the obstacle to land reforms such as those so desperately needed in the Tanjore district are unquestionably formidable. The big landowners are educated, articulated, politically astute in a position to bring powerful pressure to bear on state legislatures.* Yet I believe that there are irresistible forces pressing for reforms. It is my hope that India will be the first great Asian nation to face the issue and solve it in a peaceful, descent and democratic way. (...) In Russia and China the peasants voted for land reforms with their feet and their guns. In India they now vote for it by the ballot. (...)
* In fact, due to these big landowners, who are educated, articulated, politically astute in a position to bring powerful pressure to bear on state legislatures, the land question in India was included in the state-list. Ladejinsky observed in his later years in India that these politically astute landowners were formidable voices against any form of land reforms and had in fact, important role in policy making within the ruling Congress Party. Update

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In 1952, I arranged to have two of Americans foremost experts in land policy, Wolf Ladejinsky, the architect of the reforms in Japan, and Keneth Parsons, Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Wisconsin, come to India to review the land ownership situation and to prepare recommendations for the government. After intensive studies in several states, including Madras and the Tanjore district, Ledejinsky reported that the bitter complaints of the peasants reminded him of similar complaints he heard in preCommunist China in 1946. The land inequalities in parts of India, he said, were as bad or even worse than he had seen anywhere else in India. Both Ladejinsky and Parsons concluded that progress in reforms was much too slow to meet the rising discontent of the villagers. Members of the India Planning Commission told me that these reports were influential in guiding the recommendations in the Five Year Plan. (...)
[Source: from Ambassadors Report, Chester Bowles, 1954] [Sometime in August or September 1952, wrote L. J. Walinsky, the editor of Ladejinsky Papers, Ladejinsky arrived in India and remained there for about three months, during which he made field trips in the Punjab, Madras, and Kashmir and prepared reports on each for the Planning Commission.... Ladejinsky was attached to the Indian Planning Commission for the purpose of these studies. The reports were made directly to the Planning Commission and discussed in each case with its members and staff. In fact, Ladejinsky was deeply involved with Government of India and on many occasions instructed ministries and Planning Commission what to do and what not to do regarding land reforms in India. He again returned to India in the years of 1961-1964 as a mentor of Ford Foundation works. In these five years period, he not only lectured the Indian government on their tasks but also travelled to Nepal, the Philippines, and twice to Indonesia to propagate the land reform model of the US imperialism. Later he settled in India (1964-75) as a World Bank man and concentrated his focus in different agricultural problems including Green Revolution, technological improvements, etc. apart from land reforms. In these years, he acted as reformer and agents of changes in

update 12 75 making the third world agriculture a destinations of imperialist capital. He was asked to assist in more conventional Bank missions to Mexico and Iran in 1966. He wrote forty-seven pieces of articles in these years: forty-one for India. He made extensive field-observations in Punjab, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bengal, eastern Uttar Pradesh. During the Ford Foundations years (1961-64) he developed strategies of land reforms stating that the reforms in countries like India cannot go along the same path followed in Japan or Taiwan. In place of redistribution of land he rather proposed for countries like India the concept of Land Ceiling. But after some dismal performances of the Indian government in this regard, he later advocated the Recording of Tenancies as described earlier in the introductory comments to this chapter. Nevertheless, he concerned with the peasant unrest developing in the sixties and seventies of the last century and assertively instructed the government in a continuous manner to accelerate processes of land reforms to combat the danger. The following excerpt was written in April, 1970. Update]

Peasant Unrest in India (1969)

(...) It was the realization that the land reforms during the past two decades have not measured up to anticipations that led to the conference of the state chief ministers in November 1969. The prime minister left nothing unsaid to stress the urgency of the meeting. In her view, The warning of the times is that, unless the Green Revolution is accompanied by a revolution based on social justice, I am afraid the Green Revolution may not remain green. Mrs. Gandhi wanted the chief ministers to act now when there is still time and hope to implement the reforms properly as part of the new agricultural strategy, because No single program so intimately affects so many millions of our people as land reforms. Proceeding from the general to the specific, the prime minister pointed out the well-known ABCs of what should be done, noting that the problem lies in the lack of effective implementation. Important, too, was the emphasis on reforms effectively carried out along with access to credit and other resources so that the newly obtained rights in the land could be productively used.

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If the chief ministers were to commit themselves in earnest to the cause espoused by the prime minister, the following would have to be attended to: The preparation of a record of rights of ownership as well as tenancy, for without it no claim could be legally established and no tenant could attain security of tenure; written agreements instead of the prevailing oral agreements, rentals clearly defined, and receipts for rents made mandatory; as has been provided in some states, a tenant should not be liable for eviction for nonpayment of rent when arrears of rent are being recovered from the produce and other assets of the tenant; the right of resumption should be extinguished at least until personal cultivation is so defined as not to infringe on tenancy rights; voluntary surrenders should be so regulated that the government or local authority can settle other tenants on surrendered land if such takes place; while the ineffective ceiling provisions are practically beyond redemption, they should be reexamined primarily with an eye to preventing further concentration of land in relatively few hands; in any new rights gained by a tenant, access to water where available should be part of it, particularly as a means of utilizing new farm practices; finally, the creation of the type of village body in which the representation of tenants could become directly involved as an aid to the implementation of a reform. These are not novel measures; all are mainly concerned with security of tenure rather than distribution of land. The failure to enforce the ceiling provisions to create surplus land for distribution has been so general that any corrective measures are probably futile. The recent (late February 1970) announcement of the Uttar Pradesh government and that of Tamil Nadu that they are contemplating the lowering of the ceilings is hardly the panacea it appears at first glance, even if such measures are enacted. One must note not only the evasions, litigations, and harassment produced by the ceiling measures in the past but also the distinct possibility of diverting attention from the fundamental problem of how to achieve security of tenure. For these reasons, security of tenure rather than redistribution of land is the main issue of reforming what has remained unreformed in the agrarian structure of India. (...) Despite the mixed setting with the preponderance of negative

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factors, it is reasonable to conclude that the issue of reform will not remain in the doldrums. The tide of unrest is bound to rise and with it agitation and organization of the discontented by political parties, both old and new, and not only the parties of the extreme left. In these circumstances, what states legislatures normally refuse to enact and enforce under the due process of law, they may well be compelled to grant under duress. Tamil Nadu, for example, may be a case in point. Prior to the 1969 outbreaks of violence and loss of life, Tamil Nadu was reluctant to revise its tenurial enactments in line with the suggestions of the Planning Commission; recent indications are that it might, at long last, fall in line. Rajasthan might be another straw in the wind judging by the overt agrarian unrest in Ganganagar district and the chances of allaying it. There, opposition parties have organized groups of underprivileged farmers to make sure that the land about to be irrigated by the new Rajasthan canal is not auctioned off to the highest bidders but redistributed among the underprivileged at fixed prices. Under this pressure and in the hope of bringing the agitation to an end, the government of Rajasthan was compelled to set up a committee to conduct an on-the-spot probe into the existing rules for the allotment of land to poor farmers. The outcome of the committees deliberations remains to be seen, but the point to stress is that even the concession of looking into the matter would not have taken place but for the agitation and organization of the farmers by a variety of political parties. None of these cases nor the land and harvest grabbing in West Bengal, Kerala, and similar instances in a few other states are models of agrarian reformism. They are nothing of the kind, but it takes little imagination to see that the stage is gradually being set for a determined group to make political capital by organizing the village poor and pressing their demands outside an orderly legislative process. It is for this reason that the Home Ministry envisions an explosion in the countryside if these problems are not dealt with vigorously and without delay. Explosion may be long in coining or in its literal sense it may not come at all. But the prospect of mounting instability and vio-

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Speed up! If needed, undemocratically

The discouraging history of agrarian reform in Asia doesnt speak well for its immediate future. Yet, the prospects are not without a silver lining, mainly because in a rapidly changing world the status quo in the countryside cannot be preserved and is bound to give way. It is the experience of this observer that an increasing number of landlords are cognizant of this and are not of an easy mind about the shape of things to come. In this connection the legislative enactments with all their faults of commission and omissions are not altogether a waste of effort. The mere preoccupation with reform is on the plus side, pointing to the fact that the issue will not just fade away. The question is how to speed up the process in order to preclude a disorderly or revolutionary takeover of the landlords land and all that a violent act brings in its wake. For the time being the landless peasantry, discontented though it is, cannot on its own generate sufficient political influence to redress the balance in the countryside. It is not yet a source of authority and a mainspring of change. The change can come about in one of two ways: under the leadership of the Communists, whose expertise in using the land issue for their political ends is well known, or under the leadership presently in power. Since Communism in free Asia is not yet strong enough to seize the initiative, it behooves the existing governments to do what they have failed to do so far, while it is not too late. If this is to be done, and with dispatch, the first order of business is a proper political climate, which only a dominating political group or country can create. Assuming its presence, many of the impediments standing in the way of an effective reform, including landlord opposition, can be overcome. However, this need not imply that a break in the cake of custom and tradition will be attained democratically, peacefully, solely through the due process of law. The creators of the favorable pro-reform climate must be prepared to resort to all the institutional resources of the country and willing, if need be, to act undemocratically. [Ladejinsky remarks in a Conference of World Tensions held in 1964]

lence cannot be excluded unless the states come to realize that theirs are the opportunities of enforcing beneficially the modest, non-revolutionary programs which have always been the core of the Indian agrarian reform movement. (...)
(Source: ibid)

update 12 79 [Concerned with the unrest going on and the lackdaisical attitude of the government in implementing the reforms prescribed, Ladejinsky formulated a minimum programme. He described this minimum reform programme as not a revolutionary programme. Rather it requires only the legitimation of customary peasant rights. Update]

Minimum Programme for India

(...) Granting that reforms in India may yet see better days, what should be the character of a minimum program to which the states of India should address themselves? Experience here and elsewhere suggests an action program as outlined in the following paragraphs. First and foremost is the preparation of a record of tenancies without which no tenants claim could be legally established and no tenant can obtain security of tenure. (...) Written lease agreements instead of oral ones and receipts for rents should be made mandatory. Crop share rents are extremely difficult to regulate and should be replaced by cash rents; to facilitate this, either the rents should be fixed as a multiple of the land revenue or else the state governments should divide land in each area into a few broad categories and determine the average produce of each such category of land and the average price at which it may be converted into cash; as a rule of thumb, no rental should exceed a third of the crop, particularly where the tenant is responsible for all the inputs. The essential purpose of tenancy reform is to give security of tenure and to regulate the rent tenants pay. One without the other makes no sense, and the two measures must go hand in hand. The Indian land-man ratio being what it is, no land at a rental below 50 percent or more of the crop can be secured without the force of law behind it. The tenant will not be able to protect himself without the assurance that, barring misuse of the land or nonpayment of rent, he can remain on the land undisturbed and with a right of renewal of the lease. This is the basic part of security of tenure and is crucial to the entire scheme of land reform legislation. To make this effective, the most debilitating part of the land reform in India, the ill-defined right of an owner to resume or take back the tenants holding for personal cultivation, should be abolished or permitted only in exceptional cases defined by law. In practice

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Problems of Land Reforms

The agrarian reform movement in Asia anticipated most of those in the Middle East and in Latin America, but this advantage in time did not bring about uniformly good results. With the exception of Japan and Taiwan, the picture of Asia leaves much to be desired. The landlords property in South Korea has found its way into the hands of the tenants, but the governments failure to come to the financial assistance of the new owners has brought about indifferent results. The civil war in South Vietnam caused that reform to be short-lived. The Burmese tenants are owner farmers now, but government after government has failed to capitalize upon this and develop the rich land resources of the country. The Philippines has four reform failures on its record and is trying now for the fifth time with no greater prospects for success than heretofore. West Pakistan and Indonesia have proclaimed reform but with hardly any implementation, while Nepal, after a dozen years of cogitation, is just barely taking the first step. Finally, there is India, significant and encouraging for what it has attained in unprecedentedly difficult and bewildering conditions and just as significant and discouraging for what it has failed to attain, and for the reasons why. None of this has anything to do with ignorance of the tenancys conditions or inability to draft legislation to meet those conditions. Even Nepal, a closed and remote society only yesterday, is skilled enough to write good measures if it wants to. Surely the same can be said of every country where reform has failed. A number of reasons explain this state of affairs. To begin with there may be insufficient administrative and technical skill to mount a reform; but this is not a critical issue, and failure to implement a reform cannot be attributed to it. More to the point are inadequate measures or halfmeasures deliberately drafted so as to retard if not obstruct altogether the application and implementation of a reform; absence of leadership among the peasants to propagate the reform idea and exert effective pressure on legislative bodies; disinterestedness if not overt opposition on the part of intellectuals and molders of public opinion; and, most important, the built-in opposition to reform by the landlords, whose role in the body politic is out of all proportion to their numerical strength. This combination of factors inhibiting reform is hard to overcome. Land ownership as the main point of an agrarian reform is difficult to achieve. Examples are legion, and the reason is not far to seek. Land redistribution under agrarian reform is a compulsory measure imposed by Continued to page 81

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hardly any tenants voluntarily surrender land; they do so only under the threat of total separation from the land, even as an agricultural laborer. Such surrenders, if they are not fictitious, should be so regulated that other tenants are settled on the land; in all other instances, which is the majority of them, they should not be permitted except when the land is required for some specific nonagricultural purpose. (...)
[Source: ibid] [Taking a cue from the recommendations of this man, the Left Front Government of West Bengal enacted the Operation Barga in eighties for which it achieved massive congratulations from the ruling classes of India as well as the imperialist masters like World Bank, FAO, United Nations, etc. The LF government proved in practice that no other bourgeois governments in India could implement the (imperialist-dictated) bourgeois programmes of Land Reforms in such a way except themselves. Whats a remarkable achievement earned by these leftists! In fact, the LF government is glad to publish an excerpt from Ladejinsky Papers in the Economic Survey 2004, to prove their commitments in accomplishing the Unfinished Business of Land Reforms of Ladejinsky in Bengal soil. The excerpt quoted by LF government is written in December, 1974. Update]

Problems of Land Reforms/Contd. from p80

a government upon the landowners on economic and legal terms unpalatable to them. In effect this involves a drastic redistribution of property and income at the expense of the landlords. It becomes a revolutionary measure when it passes property, political power, and social status from one group in the society to another. This is a real meaning of an agrarian reform where land redistribution is its central objective. Considering the fact that, in the areas under discussion, legislative assemblies are still dominated by land-propertied classes, it is not difficult to see why both the enactment of appropriate legislation and its enforcement present such formidable problems. Thus land reform, despite its economic implications, commences as an essentially political question involving a most fundamental conflict of interests between the haves and the have-nots. [Ladejinsky excerpt prepared for Conference on Productivity and Innovation in Agriculture in Underdeveloped Countries held in 1964]

Operation Barga: unfinished dream of an imperialist strategist

(...) They (i.e. the landless and the semi-landless) are not only poor but have no political pull despite their numbers and no organization whatever. Presently, no political party, including the extreme left, is capable or willing to undertake such a chore. The days of the united front government of four or five years ago dominated by the Communists are gone. The 300,000 acres or so of land grabbed by Communist activists have since been returned to their owners, and many of the grabbers while their time away in jails. In this political topsy-turvy it is not surprising that the landless and the sharecroppers are left high and dry. Nor is it surprising that in the face of chronic distress and deprivation they are afraid to alienate those who provide them with work at least for part of the year. (...) Whether the poor eat better is less a function of increased production than of purchasing power they command, but the latter will remain at low levels or hardly a part of the income stream if the agrarian structure continues to be dominated by a handful of wealthy farmers. Land reform redistributive as well as protective suggests itself as an obvious antidote against inequality of land and other income-earning assets. This presumably would strike at the root cause of inequalities and their perpetuation. In West Bengal, particularly, this is easier said than done. The pockets of high concentration of ownership are there; the 5 percent who own 50 percent of the land could stand a thinning-out process, although the poorest of the poor, the landless, with no rights in land, would hardly come in for any shares. This approach, however, is mostly academic; the political climate for any redistributive scheme is not right, and the ceiling legislation and its ultimate effect on land redistribution among the needy can be dismissed as of marginal value, as illustrated by the following development. The area slated for redistribution in West Bengal under the ceiling laws is 452,000 acres. In the past two years 58,000 acres have been acquired but only 5,000 acres were actually distributed. The remainder is under dispute in law courts.

A more rewarding way of helping one category of the poor though not solving their problems is to give the sharecroppers or tenants complete security of tenure, as distinguished from distributive reforms. This would mean enforcement of the already existing legal rentals, sharing of inputs, recorded rights in the land, an end to evictions, and delivery of promised access to institutional financing of their agricultural operations. (...)
[Source: Food Shortages in West Bengal Crisis or Chronic?; Ladejinsky Papers; quoted in Economic Survey 2004, Government of West Bengal, p 37] [Thus the dream of Ladejinsky was fulfilled in India by left parties along the way prescribed by imperialism. In fact, the old revolutionary (proletarian-peasant) path was abandoned by the leftists in the late sixties of the last century. They opposed, sometimes vehemently, the spontaneous land grab movements of the landless peasants describing it chaos echoing Ladejinsky. Instead of this potential revolutionary path, they consciously projected a path of reforms from top. Firstly, during the late sixties, the UF government preferred bureaucratic measures to recover the benami lands enjoyed by the landowners (bypassing the Land Ceilings Act). Secondly, under this UF Government of West Bengal legal avenues of Operation Barga was prepared. Debabrata Bandyopadhyay (IAS), a renowned personality and former chief of the Land Reform Commission of West Bengal Government writes how a left minister of the UF Government asserted to take the land reform programmes in a bureaucratic (from top) opposing the land grab movements. Update]

Unfinished Tasks
(...) Hare Krishna Konar who was the land revenue minister in both the UF governments was totally against illegal seizure of private land whether benami or held clandestinely by other means. His thesis was that the peasantry in West Bengal like elsewhere in the world was highly conservative in matters relating to private property. Under the inducement of any political party they might illegally occupy such private lands but they would look upon it as acts of banditry. They would not hold on to these lands with

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the shifting of political power from the left to other centrist or right forces. So he discouraged such seizures and insisted on proper vesting of ceiling surplus land through due process of law. It was entirely on his leadership that the kisan sabhas provided genuine witnesses before the revenue officers through which about one million acres of clandestinely held good lands were vested in the state. Bureaucracy played a significant role in unearthing hidden land by painstaking investigations and vesting them through proper process giving due opportunity to the landowners to defend their cases.
[Source: by D. Bandyopadhyay, Economic & Political Weekly (EPW), July 5, 2003] [In another article, Mr. Bandyopadhyay explained more about the Land Reforms programme of the leftists.]

Land reforms & Agriculture: the West Bengal Experience

(...) [L]et us examine briefly West Bengals land reform programme. Land reforms in the state took place in two phases. Each phase had distinct characteristics of its own. The first phase was in 1967-70 under the two UF governments. When the first UF government came to power in February 1967, the countryside in West Bengal was seething with agrarian discontent. The first arrow of the militant Naxalbari movement was shot in that village soon after the new government assumed power. Hare Krishna Konar, the charismatic peasant leader who became revenue minister, tried to dissuade the breakaway group of the CPI(M) from taking to violence. He failed. To contain the movement politically in addition to the administrative and police actions being undertaken, he said that he would act on Mao Zedongs famous thesis of fish in water. Militants (fish) could roam about freely in the water of peasants discontent. If the restlessness of the poor peasantry could be reduced, the fish would vanish. Though ceiling provisions were introduced in 1955, by 1967 only 300,000 acres (approximately) of land had vested. This was all surrendered land of big landlords. It was common knowledge that the landed gentry still controlled huge chunks of agricul-

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tural land, way beyond the ceiling through various devious means. They had well crafted documents to show that nominally they did not possess any land above the ceiling. These documents could be disproved only by overwhelming oral evidence of direct witnesses like sharecroppers, agricultural workers and other categories of rural workers who directly worked under the real owners and not under the nominal title holders. A massive quasi-judicial campaign was launched to unearth the clandestinely held land strictly according to law and established procedures. By 1970 (in less than three years), about a million acres of good agricultural land vested in the state. It had some important side effects which should be mentioned. The poor peasantry participated in the quasi-judicial proceedings in large numbers as witnesses. They found that it yielded results. Violence had created terror but produced no land for redistribution. They reposed faith in peaceful collective action, eschewing the path of militancy. The Naxal movement in rural areas faded away. (...) During the Congress regime of 1972-77, some efforts were made to get back the land lost by the landed aristocracy. But they failed as proper legal procedures were followed while vesting. But they took their revenge on sharecroppers and agricultural workers who tendered evidence against them. Many sharecroppers were evicted. Social ostracism and even physical punishment was meted out to many. Thus, when the Left Front (LF) government came to power in 1977 they had to urgently give attention to the plight of sharecroppers who had suffered badly during the previous regime. Benoy Choudhury, another famous peasant leader, became land reforms minister. (...) [A] procedure was followed with appropriate modification during Operation Barga; 1978-81, with startling results of the recording of 1.2 million sharecroppers in three years. Taking advantage of a law passed during the internal emergency (1975-77), which allowed free title to homestead plots up to five cents for a homeless family, 500,000 such cases were also recorded in tandem with Operation Barga, giving title to such actual occupiers. In quantitative terms over 1.6 million sharecroppers were re-

corded giving them hereditary right of cultivation, and a fair deal in crop sharing with a certificate of sharecropping which could be used as a document to establish ones identity and also for securing crop loans from institutions. About a million acres of vested land were distributed among 2.5 million beneficiaries who were landless or land-poor peasants. Half a million households were given title to homestead plots. Land reform thus directly benefited a little over four million rural households a significant proportion of the rural population. (...) After several decades of violence and turmoil during each harvesting season, Operation Barga brought peace to the countryside. This tranquillity in the rural areas induced and encouraged private investment in agriculture for long-term benefit. Those who had the capacity could now think on a long-term basis and make investment decisions for increasing production on their own land.
[Source: EPW, March 1, 2003] [Thus, a land reforms expert (of bourgeois origin) made a candid appraisal of the land reforms programmes of LF government. The land grab movement had been contained; forcible seizures of land had been opposed; restlessness of the poor peasantry faded away and vanished by the land reforms programmes of the LF government executed through the bureaucracy and judiciary; and finally these reforms brought peace to the countryside after several decades of violence and turmoil. Overall, it may concluded that the land reforms programmes of the ruling classes of India under the patronage of imperialists was executed by the leftists. But, Mr. Bandyopadhyay missed a point, probably due to his class angle. He should have mentioned that most of the benami land were recovered by the struggling peasants in this period of turmoil. LF government, praised for his extraordinary efforts for land reforms, recovered & distributed little benami land by the machineries of bureaucracy and judiciary. Most of the land, in fact, vested and distributed during those period of violence and turmoil under the direct pressures of the peasant unrest. Moreover, it should have been told that the measures of land reforms taken by LF government is very much limited in scale, skewed and full of fallacies. Ajit Narayan Basu, an ex-member of State Planning Commission writes in the following way. Update]

Land vested & distributed

Upto September 2001, the LF government distributed 10.58 lakh hectare of land. Most of these lands (6.26 lakh hectares) were distributed before 1977, i.e., before the period LF ministry came to power. Moreover, out of these distributed lands majority were handed over during the period of peasant movement of late sixties. Therefore, the LF government, distributed only 4.32 lakh hectare of land during the last 29 years!
[Source: Economy and Politics of West Bengal, Ajit Narayan Basu] [Nevertheless, this is a remarkable achievement in comparison to other states. Thus the LF proves that they are far better supporter and executor of land reform programmes of the ruling class than any other bourgeois parties in India. But, buried under this extraordinary success of land reforms, lies a bitter truth uncovered by Mr. Debabrata Bandyopadhyay. In a special article, Mr Bandyopadhyay states that the programme of Operation Barga silenced the bargadars of their demand for title/ownership of the land they cultivate. Update]

Time is not ripe, yet!

(...) Harekrishna Konar was revenue minister (1967, 1969-70). During these three years, approximately 10 lakh acre of land outside of ceilings was vested into the hands of government according to the Act. In this regard the witnesses of bargadars were very much important. One day, in our conversations, I asked him, bargadars are taking too much responsibility in vesting the lands. Are you thinking to give them the ownership of the land? He answered in simple, time is not ripe, yet. That was 1969-70. Ten years after started the Operation Barga under the government of Left Front. Recording of the names of bargadars started. After the completion of recording of a few lakhs I asked Binoy Choudhury [then land revenue minister], the recording of the names of the bargadars are going on. As a result, they can avail every opportunities of the Act. In the Act it is also stated about prohibition of eviction, share of 75:25, etc. But, there is no mention of ownership.... I said, the names of bargadars are being recorded now... Now the government may enact Acts easily to fulfil this task [of

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giving them ownership of land]. He said after an quite interval, time is not ripe, yet. Dr. Bidhan Ch. Roy in 1958, Harekrishna Konar in 1969-70, and Binoy Choudhury in 1979-80 in replying to the same question gave the same answer: time is not ripe, yet. (...)
[Source: The Statesman, 01.07.2004] [In fact, the time has never came. Never came the time for the executors of land reforms to recognise the rights of the bargadars to claim the ownership of land they cultivate. On the contrary of this recognition, they legitimise the system of exploitation perpetrated on the bargadars by the rent-seeking landlords. Moreover, a recent study, made by the West Bengal Government himself, discloses some startling facts exposing the myth of these much-acclaimed Operation Barga. This study reveals that 15% of the beneficiaries of Operation Barga dispossessed land in last two decades. Moreover, though 75:25 is the norms fixed by the Act, nearly 19% of sharecroppers deliver 50% share to the landlords while another 13% of them deliver 40% of share (Beneficiaries of Land Reforms: the West Bengal Scenario, State Institute of Panchayats and Rural Development, Kalyani, Nadia, Government of West Bengal, Spandan, Kolkata, 2003). Another point must be mentioned here. According to Ajit N. Basu, till September 2001, 10.58 lakh acre vested land is distributed and Bargadars have been given right to till another 11.08 lakh acre land. In all, these constitute only 15.50% of net cultivated land of the state. Therefore, the land reforms programme of Left Front left aside 84.5% of land! This is happened in land-reform-famed West Bengal! Hence, the records of other states in this regard is easily comprehensible. Alas Ladejinsky! Alas the mantra of land reforms executed in landlordcapitalist path! In fact, this path was taken by the ruling classes mainly to absorb the revolutionary potential of the peasant masses once fuming against the oppressions, exploitations meted on them. This task was accomplished. Spectre of revolutions vanished away. Fear of losing lands in a revolutionary path had been averted. Pervasive atmosphere of reformism was created. But they cannot annihilate the contradictions in the countryside. Nor it can be happened. Nor be killed the land-hunger among the landless peasants observed by Ladejinsky.]

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